Oscar sundevall testing offensive realism on nato expansion i europe (masters thesis)

Oscar Sundevall Masters thesis Spring 2011

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Testing Offensive Realism

on NATO expansion in

Europe

A case study in three parts

Masters thesis in Political Science and International Relations

Department of Government - Uppsala University, spring 2011

Author: Oscar Sundevall

Supervisor: Aaron Maltais


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Abstract:

This masters thesis is a qualitative case study, testing the explanatory power of John J.

Mearsheimers “Offensive Realism” as expressed in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

(2001) on NATO’s continued existence and expansion in Europe post-Cold War.

Mearsheimer assumes that states are rational power maximizes, always looking out for

themselves in an anarchical world, always trying to gain more power at the expense of others.

From this line of reasoning, NATO’s continued existence and expansion seems to be the

opposite of rational state behavior as NATO has expanded with countries that require more

protection than they contribute in collective security. I pose three questions; first I test the

construct validity of Offensive Realism on NATO’s continued existence. My findings point

towards it being an anomaly of the theory. Second, since Mearsheimer assumes that

anomalies have negative consequences (states gaining less power and security than if they

would have followed Offensive Realisms maxims), by use of counterfactuals I test if U.S.

membership of NATO did or did not have negative consequences for the country. My

findings points towards no causal connection between U.S. security concerns and NATO’s

existence and expansion. This shows that states can have goals and behaviors that are

anomalies, but not suffer the negative consequences Offensive Realism presupposes they will.

Third, I test my alternate theory of explanation, Neoclassical Realism, by uncovering if unit-

level variables had any explanatory power in the process of NATO finding new rationales for

existence and expansion post-Cold War. My findings points towards unit-level variables with

explanatory power especially in the process leading up to the expansion of NATO.

Keywords: international relations, realism, offensive realism, structural realism, neoclassical realism,

mearsheimer, waltz, nato, cold war, united states, foreign policy


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Table of contents

Chapter 1 – Introduction, purpose and outline ........................................................................... 5 1.1 Power as the driving force of conflict .............................................................................. 5 1.2 Scope, purpose and research question .............................................................................. 7 1.3 General outline ................................................................................................................. 7

Chapter 2 – Theories of Foreign Policy ..................................................................................... 8 2.1 Offensive Realism ............................................................................................................ 8 2.2 Differences and likeness with Defensive Realism ........................................................... 8 2.3 Premises of Offensive Realism ........................................................................................ 9 2.4 Assumptions of Offensive Realism ................................................................................ 10

2.4.1 Anarchy ................................................................................................................... 10 2.4.2 Offensive military capability ................................................................................... 11 2.4.3 Uncertainty .............................................................................................................. 11 2.4.4 The goal is survival ................................................................................................. 11 2.4.5 Great powers are rational actors .............................................................................. 11

2.5 Central strategies of Offensive Realism ......................................................................... 12 2.6 Neoclassical Realism ...................................................................................................... 14

2.6.1 Figure 1 – variables in Neoclassical Realism .......................................................... 14 2.7 Key players within the state ........................................................................................... 15

2.7.1 Foreign Policy Executive (FPE) .............................................................................. 15 2.7.2 Societal Elites .......................................................................................................... 15

2.8 Neoclassical Realism as an extension of Structural Realism? ....................................... 16 2.8.1 Figure 2 – specificity and generalizability .............................................................. 17

2.9 Assumptions of Neoclassical Realism ........................................................................... 18 2.9.1 Primacy of conflict groups ...................................................................................... 19 2.9.2 Primacy of power .................................................................................................... 19 2.9.3 Anarchy of the international system ........................................................................ 19 2.9.4 Confined rationality ................................................................................................. 20 2.9.5 Figure 3 – feedback in Neoclassical Realism .......................................................... 22

2.10 Concepts of Offensive and Neoclassical Realism ........................................................ 22

Chapter 3 – Research questions, design and case .................................................................... 23 3.1 Methods of research ....................................................................................................... 23 3.2 Research questions ......................................................................................................... 23

3.2.1 Figure 4 – research design ....................................................................................... 24 3.3 The second best design ................................................................................................... 25 3.4 Methodological standards .............................................................................................. 26 3.5 Limitations of Neoclassical Realism .............................................................................. 27 3.6 Material .......................................................................................................................... 27 3.7 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 28 3.8 The Case: NATO cold-War War existence and expansion in Europe ........................... 29

Chapter 4 – Analysis ................................................................................................................ 30 4.1 Analysis: NATO post-Cold War existence and expansion in Europe (question 1) ....... 30 4.2 Analysis: NATO post-Cold War existence and expansion in Europe (question 2) ....... 35 4.3 Analysis: NATO post-Cold War existence and expansion in Europe (question 3) ....... 40

4.3.1 A new raison d’état ................................................................................................. 41 4.3.2 New purpose - new expansion ................................................................................ 45

Chapter 5 – Conclusions and final thoughts ............................................................................. 50


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5.1 Conclusions in summary ................................................................................................ 50 5.2 What then of Europe? ..................................................................................................... 51 5.3 Offensive Realism might be right, if Mearsheimer is wrong ......................................... 52

6. References ............................................................................................................................ 55 6.1 Books & articles ............................................................................................................. 55 6.2 Internet sources .............................................................................................................. 57


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Chapter 1 – Introduction, purpose and outline

1.1 Power as the driving force of conflict Political scientists have since the dawn of the first Greek city-states theorized and tried to

explain causes of inter-state conflicts and behaviour. The Greek historian Thucydides (460-

395 BC) is by historical accounts the first person who sowed the seed of realist thought. In his

record of the Peloponnesian War he touches upon a number of core assumptions of

international relations theory, later developed during the centuries, for example when Athens

builds city walls in fear of Spartas might, it might provoke a first strike response.1 Central

concepts later developed into scientific building blocks, such as anarchy, relative power and

balancing are persistent as the backdrop of Thucydides historical narrative, in his attempt to

gauge why Athens and Sparta behaved like they did.

Thucydides lasting legacy to the world was that he recognized power as a fundamental

driving force of political relationships and conflicts. In his own words: “The strong do what

they can and the weak suffer what they must”.2 This assumption is echoed in some of the

most seminal works of political theory that followed. Thomas Hobbes who translated

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War wrote Leviathan in the 17th century. Hobbes

touches upon an insight and fact that is a cornerstone of international relations theory, namely

that beyond commonwealths there is no Leviathan, or in his words “no court of natural

justice”.3 Therefore anarchy is a state of nature in international relations, and consequently

actors need to provide their own security by gaining and maintaining power. This posits the

security dilemma. As power is in Hobbes view a relative concept, ones security is the

insecurity of another. This bleak fact of life in international relations makes it in his view, and

in modern realist thought, necessary to gain more power than competing nations, i.e. to

balance power.

One might of course ask why the study of a certain theory of International Relations has any

real world relevance outside academia. It all boils down to the fact that armed conflicts seem 1 Clifford W. Brown, “Thucydides, Hobbes and the derivation of anarchy” in History of Political Thought Volume VIII, spring 1978 2 Thucydides. 1934 reissue. The Peloponnesian War (book V) 3 Hobbes, Thomas. 2009 reissue. Leviathan


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to be an ever persistent and ever returning activity of human civilization. Professor of

archeology, Lawrance H. Kelly claims that some 95 percent of all known societies have

engaged in warfare.4 Advancing knowledge of states decisions in foreign policy in large - and

pertaining to warfare and organizations conductive to warfare and conflict management in

particular – thus has an undeniable scientific and societal relevance.

Realism strength as theory rests on the fact that it draws from a rich history of political

thought, from previously mentioned Thucydides and Hobbes, through Machiavelli and

Kjellén. These thinkers and political scientists could all be called purveyors of raison d’état,

or reason of state - a doctrine of different maxims that are said to increase security of the

state, when followed in foreign affairs.5 By stripping away idealism, realism claims to show

the naked power structure of the world, i.e. the world as it ‘is’.

Since Realism in large presents itself as an objective and amoral theoretical framework of

statecraft, with very few independent and dependent variables, it should also be highly

testable by scientific method. What I found especially interesting is the recent sub-theory of

Offensive Realism, developed by John J. Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power

Politics (2001). My interest in testing his theory stems in part from the fact that he explicitly

denies that domestic politics has any real influence on foreign policy – I find it instinctually

unlikely that ‘all’ is determined by a states relative power. The theory is simply a bit too

reductionist for my liking. A basic premise of his theory is also that states are assumed to be,

what cannot be called anything else than selfish. States look out for themselves first and

always.

From this line of reasoning should follow that states do not enter and maintain, and especially

expand alliances when they are not threatened. But this seems to be the case, as the defensive

alliance of NATO has more than doubled its membership base after the end of the Cold War.

Why do mighty states like the U.S. agree to expand an alliance with new members that

require more protection than they contribute in collective security? It seems contradictory to

Mearsheimers theory. Can this possible contradiction be traced to a variable he explicitly

4 Keeley, H. Lawrance. 1996. War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage 5 Dunne, Tim & Schmidt, C. Brian. 2008. ”The timeless wisdom of Realism”, in The Globalization of World Politics: 162


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denies to provide any explanatory power: For example domestic politics, a certain politician,

or an ‘x-factor’ uncovered by his theory? To answer these questions is the aim of this thesis.

1.2 Scope, purpose and research question This master’s thesis is a qualitative case study. The purpose is as argued above to test the

explanatory power of the ‘Realistic’ theory called Offensive Realism as it is presented by its

originator, Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001). I will do this by

pitting it against a competing theory called Neoclassical Realism. The purpose of this thesis is

to test Offensive Realism on the following questions:

• Why does NATO continue to exist and expand post-Cold War with countries that

require more protection than they contribute in collective security?

• Is the continued existence, and post-Cold War expansion of NATO in Europe an

anomaly of Mearsheimers Offensive Realism?

If it indeed is to be regarded as an anomaly of the theory, I will move on to test if it did or did

not have negative consequences for the U.S. as Mearsheimer would assume (“negative

consequences” being equal to not gaining as much power as they would have if they had

followed Offensive Realisms maxims). Finally, I will look for unit-level variables with

explanatory power, which is what Neoclassical Realism, as the alternate explanatory theory

would presuppose exist.6 In the section “method of research”, I will outline in detail the

research design, discuss problems and strengths, and narrow down the questions to three

testable hypotheses.

1.3 General outline

6 A unit-level variable is a domestic or sub-domestic variable: It could be anything from an interest group, economic interests, foreign policy planners and their agendas, to domestic “events” such as presidential elections. It is not a variable that necessarily is relative to another states, and assumed to influence foreign policy by its relative distribution between states. Gideon Rose for example identifies two typical unit-level variables in ”decision makers perspectives” and ”domestic decision making processes”. Se Rose, Gideon. 1998. “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy”, in World Politics Vol. 51 no. 1


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This master’s thesis is structured into five main chapters. The sections above seeks to give the

reader a very basic understanding of some of the salient characteristics of International

Relations theory, a brief overview it’s history, and introduce some core concepts of Realism,

namely that of power and anarchy. I have also presented the purpose of this master’s thesis.

In chapter two, on theory, I will familiarize the reader with Offensive Realism, Defensive

Realism and Neoclassical Realist thought, showing both it’s similarities and differences, to

give the reader a theoretical understanding of the conflicting views on relevant explanatory

variables and contested concepts.

In chapter three, I will describe and discuss my method of research, the case, associated

material and the demarcations of this thesis, given the case I have chosen. As described in

“scope, purpose and research question” above I will argue as to why the case of NATO’s

post-Cold War existence and expansion is suitable in testing Offensive Realism.

In chapter four I will present my analysis, and it’s results. And finally in chapter five, I will

discuss my conclusions, and final thoughts.

Chapter 2 – Theories of Foreign Policy 2.1 Offensive Realism The most hard-boiled power-centered theory of all within Realism is Offensive Realism. It is

a beautifully simplistic theory, almost to a fault. Offensive Realism posits that the overriding

goal of each Great Power state is to maximize its share of world power, which will be at the

expense of other states power.7 Offensive Realism thus recognizes that power is a relative

concept. Although all Great Powers, would like to be strongest of all, the ultimate goal is to

be the hegemon, the only Great Power in the system.8

2.2 Differences and likeness with Defensive Realism To narrow down the conceptual scope of the theory, we need to first look at its close relative,

called Defensive Realism (or Neorealism). The basic assumption of Defensive Realism as

7 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 2 8 ibid


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Kenneth Waltz originally stated it, is that all states aim to survive. Therefore they seek

security, which usually equates with their current position. As he puts it: “The first concern of

states is to maintain their position in the system”.9 Great Powers are inclined to gain power at

the expense of others, but Waltz emphasizes balance as a core concept. If states aggressively

seek power, then other states will balance against them. Also, if they overstretch their

ambition, gaining “to much” power, the balancing effect will leave them worse off than if

they simply acted defensively.10 At Defensive Realisms core is thus the notion that the

international system favors status quo, and consequently a defensive posture.

Moving back to Offensive Realism and Mearsheimer, we begin to see what are the contested

concepts between the two theories. Unlike Defensive Realism, Offensive Realism argues that

status quo is rare, because the international system creates incentives for states to try to gain

more power at the expense of others.11 The underlying conflict essentially boils down to that

Defensive Realism sees balancing as likely and successful, and Offensive Realism does not.

They do however share one important feature: The structure (incentives) of the system is the

independent variable, i.e. the main explanatory variable as to why states compete for power.

Both are essentially system-level theories, although Waltz’s theory recognizes that unit-level

variables can have explanatory power.12 Mearsheimer on other hand rejects the notion that

domestic politics matters, and that certain domestic political coalitions will be more

aggressive than others.13 Offensive Realism is fundamentally amoral, since it does not

distinguish between “good” and “bad” states, for example that a state that acts “nice” will

gain good-will and be treated “nice” by others. States are instead analytically treated like

billiard balls of varying size, their movement being determined by outside pressure.14 In

Mearsheimers own words: “A purely realist interpretation of the Cold War, for example,

allows for no meaningful difference in the motives behind American and Soviet behavior

during the conflict”.15

2.3 Premises of Offensive Realism 9 Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics: 126 10 ibid: chapter 8 11 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 21 12 Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics: 91 13 Rosecrance, Richard N. 2002. ”War and Peace”, review article in World Politics Vol. 55 No. 1: 141 14 Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. ”The False Promise of International Institutions”, in International Security Vol. 19 No. 3: 48 15 ibid: 48


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Since no great state is likely to achieve global hegemony, the world is, in the words of

Mearsheimer “condemned to perpetual great-power competition”. From this follows that

Great Powers are primed to exploit opportunities to alter the distribution of power in their

favor, if they possess necessary capabilities.16 I.e. Great Powers are inclined to be offensive.17

The underlying factual premise of these assumptions are threefold 1) the persistent fact that

the world lacks a Leviathan, 2) the fact that states always possess some offensive military

capabilities, and 3) the fact that states can never be certain of other states intentions.18

While these three points are essentially uncontested, the interpretations of how this translates

into state behavior is debated within IR theory and Realism in large, as shown briefly above,

and as I will reveal in greater detail in following sections. Mearsheimer himself recognizes

this as he writes that Offensive Realism is both a descriptive and prescriptive (normative)

theory: States should behave according to the maxims of Offensive Realism. But if the theory

describes how states act, is there a need to prescribe how they should act? Mearsheimer

confesses that states sometimes act in contradiction to the theory (they are in his words

“anomalies”), but this behavior “invariably has negative consequences”.19 I will return to this

statement in the chapter three, as it is a theoretical weak point of the theory, and a point of

critique.

2.4 Assumptions of Offensive Realism

To flesh out the central assumptions of Offensive Realism, we need to recapitulate and

expand the three previously mentioned points, and add two more.

2.4.1 Anarchy Common to all Realist theories is the assumption that the international system is anarchic.

This is not a statement as to how rife the world is with conflict. Rather it is an “ordering

16 A great power is defined by Mearsheimer ”largely” on basis of relative military capability. To qualify as a great power, a state must have sufficient military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the worlds most powerful state. Se Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 5 17 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 3 18 ibid: 3 19 ibid: 12


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principle” stating that the international system is made up of sovereign states that have no

central authority with monopoly of force or judiciary above them.20

2.4.2 Offensive military capability All Great Powers possess some offensive military capability, giving them power to hurt one

another. From this follows that states are potentially dangerous to each other. Counting

nuclear arms as offensive weapons, then not only Great Powers - i.e. the U.S., Great Britain,

France, Russia and China - possess offensive military capabilities, but also regional powers

such as India, Pakistan, Israel and North-Korea.

2.4.3 Uncertainty Remembering the theoretical divide of Defensive and Offensive Realism on the explanatory

power of balancing, Offensive Realism posits that status quo and equilibrium is an illusion.

While this assumption is contested, the factual premise it is based on holds true - history

shows us that all ‘empires’ one time or another have declined and fallen, either from internal

strife or external pressure. Add to this the assumption that any state lives in uncertainty as to

other states intentions and capabilities.21 This is underlined not in the least by, also the factual

premise that it’s next to impossible to separate offensive military capability from defensive.

This is increasingly the case as military tactics and military forces of both Great Powers and

lesser powers become more mobile.

2.4.4 The goal is survival Offensive Realism assumes that states primary goal is survival. That is to maintain its

sovereignty, territorial integrity and autonomy of its domestic political order (laws, political

system, order of society).22 At glance this seems to echo Defensive Realism assumption,

which is also that states overarching goal is survival. To a point this is true, the difference

between the two comes to how a state should act to survive. Offensive Realisms assumption is

well known: By offensively seeking more power at the expense of others.

2.4.5 Great powers are rational actors Offensive Realism assumes that states are not only aware of the ‘fact’ that the driving force of

state behavior is the quest for power, to secure ones survival. It also assumes that states have

the ability to strategically weigh options and possible actions, pertaining to how other states

20 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 30 21 Hall, John A. 2003. ”A Perpetual and Restless Desire of Power after Power”, review essay in The Canadian Journal of Sociology Vol. 28 No. 4: 565 22 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 31


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will react given their own preferences, and how the actions of those states will affect their

own strategy for survival.23

In summary, according to Mearsheimer these five assumptions, anarchy, offensive military

capability, uncertainty, survival, and rationality, result in certain patterns of behavior: 1) fear,

2) self-help and 3) power maximization.24

2.5 Central strategies of Offensive Realism I have displayed the central and underlying assumptions of Offensive Realism, as to how the

international system is assumed to be ordered. To further understand how states are assumed

to behave towards one another in the Offensive Realist framework, we need to also look at

strategies and options. They are as follows:

2.5.1 War – The name of the strategy says it all: the use of military force to further ones goal

of gaining more power, to gain more security. There is a scholarly debate as to if and to what

degree war is a successful way of furthering the state agenda of gaining power. Offensive

Realism, in the vein of Mearsheimer, does not claim that war is always the best option, rather

he makes the case that those claiming war almost always bankrupts the aggressor and leads to

no concrete benefits are wrong. War has been, is, and is assumed to continue to be an option

pursued by Great Powers in some situations.25

2.5.2 Blackmail – The strategy of threatening with the use of force. It is ceteris paribus

preferable to war, since it entails achieving ones goal without the material costs associated

with war. However, it is unlikely to shift a power balance in any real terms, since Great

Powers also have great military strength. Therefore they are unlikely to cave in to threats

without a fight. Mearsheimer claims that blackmail is more likely to work against minor

powers that have no Great Power ally.26

2.5.3 Bait and bleed – This strategy is employed to cause a conflict with two rival powers,

while the ‘baiter’ remains unscathed with its military power intact. Mearsheimer makes the

23 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 31 24 ibid: 32 25 ibid: 148 26 ibid: 152


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claim that this strategy is rarely used; since the states being baited are likely to recognize the

danger of letting the baiter remain on the sidelines. There is also the danger of one of the

states actually win a quick victory, with the end result of them gaining rather than losing

power.27 One of the few concrete examples of this strategy being employed is the Al-Qaeda

attack on the U.S. in 2001, where some sources claim that the implicit goal of the attack was

to tie up the U.S. military in a costly campaign in Afghanistan.28

2.5.4 Bloodletting – This is a refined variant of the ‘bait and bleed’ strategy. By making sure

two rivals are engaged in a long and costly conflict they drain each other’s resources, and in

doing so involuntarily increase the relative power of the state that is on the sideline. There is

no actual ‘baiting’ involved in this version, rather the two fighting states went to war for other

reasons, but the on-going conflict is fueled by a third party. Unlike the bait and bleed strategy,

historical records show this strategy being explicitly deployed on numerous occasions.29

2.5.5 Balancing – This strategy entails a Great Power taking responsibility for preventing an

aggressor from shifting the balance of power. The goal is to deter the aggressor, either with

the threat of force, or in worst case, the use of force. In Mearsheimers analytical framework,

this strategy entails three sub-strategies: 1) Drawing the proverbial line in the sand by

diplomatic channels, 2) Creating a defensive alliance, so called “external balancing”, and 3)

Pooling additional resources of their own, for example increasing military spending or

implementing conscription, so called “internal balancing”.30

2.5.6 Buck-‐passing – Mearsheimer argues that this strategy is the preferred option to

balancing. A buck-passer attempts to shift the burden of deterring or possibly fighting the

aggressor, while it remains unscathed. Ideally it looks for some other state that is also

threatened by the aggressor to bear the burden of deterrence or possibly war. Like most other

strategies displayed in this section, buck-passing has been used on several occasions during

the 19th and 20th century.31

27 ibid: 154 28 Atwan, Bari Abdel. 2006. The Secret History of Al Qaeda: 221 29 During both World War I & II, for detailed examples, see: Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 154 30 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 157 31 ibid: 158


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2.6 Neoclassical Realism

The latest branch on the tree of realist theory of international relations is the so-called school

of Neoclassical Realism. It developed as a new school of thought in the early nineties, related

to other forms of realist thought, but with its own defining characteristics. Although still

embryonic in some aspects, mostly in the sense that it is not as singular and simplistic in its

assumptions as Mearsheimers Offensive Realism, it has arguably proven to be a useful

analytical framework in explaining certain state behavior and foreign policy outcomes.32

Neoclassical Realism (henceforth “NCR”) shares the same bleak outlook on international

relations as Realism as a whole: The world is Hobbesian, lacks a leviathan and therefore is

characterized by anarchy. From this follows that the most important determinant of state

behavior is the relative power relative to other states. From these two basic conceptions of the

makeup of the international system flows all other analysis of state behavior. NCR opens up

domestic variables that act as filters and feedback mechanisms between the primary

independent variable, relative power, and the dependent variable of foreign policy:

2.6.1 Figure 1 – variables in Neoclassical Realism

A way of highlighting the different relevant variables in state action is the three “images”, or

theories, of Waltz. He differs between the first image of individual decision-makers, the

second image of domestic politics, and the third image of international politics.33 There is no

consensus among defensive realist/neorealist scholars on precise mechanisms of third-image

32 See for example Fareed Zakaria. 1998. From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role 33 Waltz, Kenneth. 1959. Man, the State, and War: 159, 188

Relative Power (independent)

Domestic variables

Foreign Policy (dependent)


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factors in explaining foreign policy, and especially war. But the common view is that

international factors are the best starting points of analysis.

In the view of NCR states are not unitary actors, but composed of networks of differing

interests. While this is factually self-evident, a defining characteristic of NCR is that it

emphasizes and employs it in research. Sometimes in conflict and sometimes in alliance

different interests within the state shape foreign policy in the “wiggle room” that exists under

the systemic pressure of the international system and the premises of anarchy and relative

power.

2.7 Key players within the state A central assumption of NCR is thus the primacy of groups (unit-level variables) within the

nation. S.E. Lobell has developed a framework of classification of influential groups within a

given state:

2.7.1 Foreign Policy Executive (FPE) Composed of the state leaders that sit at the intersection of domestic and international politics.

This group is the “sole authoritative foreign policy maker”, responsible for, and presumed to

be interested in preserving national security.34 They have a monopoly on intelligence on

foreign countries, and have in their hand the reins of the states foreign policy. Thus, any

policy shift must come from, be pushed through, or be convincing enough for the FPE to

change policy.

2.7.2 Societal Elites Composed of socioeconomic leaders within the state, interested in maximizing their sectors

economic welfare. Lobell differs between two broad societal coalitions, internationalists and

nationalists. The coalitions form around shared (economic) interests. From these interests

their outlook on foreign policy is shaped, Lobell quotes approvingly Peter Gourevich: “What

people want depends on where they sit”.35

These two ideal types do not presuppose that neither the FPE nor the Societal Elite groups are

internally coherent on preferred policy at all times. Worth noting is also the difference

34 Lobell, S.E. 2009. ”Threat assessment, the state, and foreign policy”, in Neoclassical Realism, The State, And Foreign Policy: 57 35 Quoted in Lobell, S.E. 2009. ”Threat assessment, the state, and foreign policy”, in Neoclassical Realism, The State, And Foreign Policy: 58


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between the variables state power (tools of the government) and national power (public

support, shared beliefs and culture, etc). A government can in the views of NCR use state

power in foreign policy to influence a domestic goal concerning national power, for example

“rallying at the flag”-type outcomes.

There is no conflict between NCR and realism in large that in the long term, a state’s behavior

will likely converge with predictions of its actions, following the given structural factors of its

existence, i.e. it’s relative power.36 However, as shown above, NCR argues that to truly

understand foreign policy choices of a given state, not in the least in the short run, we need to

take into account intra-state politics, and its relevant unit-level variables – vocal interest

groups, economic interests, foreign policy makers. In essence, pressure from the international

system is filtered and mediated through unit-level variables that affect policy choices within

the given room of action available to the state.37

2.8 Neoclassical Realism as an extension of Structural Realism? The question begs to be answered if NCR should be viewed, as Randall Schweller suggests,

as a ‘theory of mistakes’. Schweller argues that “states rarely conform to realism’s

assumptions of units as coherent actors. The closer the policymaking process and actual state-

societal relations approximate a unitary actor, the more accurate realism’s predictions”.38 This

constitutes a “weak” form of NCR. As Waltz posits, states can do “any fool thing they want”,

but they are likely to be rewarded for behavior that is in line with the structural pressure, and

consequently punished for behavior that isn’t.39 From this line of reasoning, one might like

Brian Rathbun argue that NCR is indeed an extension of structural realism.40 In essence, when

state behavior conforms to structural pressure structural realism provides “enough” of an

explanation. When it does not, NCR comes into play.

I would however argue that this line of reasoning sells out NCR cheap, given the fact that

NCR scholars like Zakaria are not occupied with explaining “mistakes”, but actually

36 Juneau, Thomas. 2010. Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: 2 37 Loebell et al. 2009. Neoclassical Realism, The State, And Foreign Policy: 141 38 Schweller, Randall. 2006. Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power. 39 Waltz, Kenneth. 2003. ”Evaluating Theories” in John A. Vasquez et al, eds, Realism and the Balance of Power: 49 40 Rathbun, Brian. 1998. “A Rose by Any Other Name: Neoclassical Realism as the Logical and Necessary Extension of Structural Realism”, in Security Studies 17: 294-321


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anomalies that cannot be explained by other theories. Neither Zakaria nor Rose who coined

‘Neoclassical Realism’ would agree with Rathbun, as their kind of NCR incorporates unit-

level variables from the get go, not only when other realist theories fails in giving satisfactory

answers.41 But as Juneau argues there is no real conflict between these at glance opposing

views of NCR, if we look at them simply as tools available for a given research problem:

Which one we pick is but a question of the problem. The spectrums of research can be shown

visually:

2.8.1 Figure 2 – specificity and generalizability42

Rathbunian – ‘theory of mistakes’, Rosian – ‘foreign policy analysis’

Any given NCR research program can move along these two spectrums. The more one moves

towards specificity one, usually, loses in generalizability. Without positing a “straw man”,

realism in its defensive and offensive forms, are theories of foreign policy occupied with

foremost meta-factors: systemic explanations. NCR on the other hand leans towards

specificity, thus losing some generalizability. While this can be a point of critique that NCR

does not posits any “catch-all” theories, what you gain in specificity you lose in

41 Rose, Gideon. 1998. “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy”, in World Politics Vol. 51 No. 1: 146 42 Juneau, Thomas. 2010. Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: 3

Rathbunian Rosian

SpeciIicity

Generalizability


18

generalizability in all social science. If not “grander” realist theories of IR can explain a given

outcome of interest; it is moot point of critique of NCR.

As B.O. Fordham argues, the loss of generalizability of NCR could actually be called a strong

point of the theory. Structural realism (offensive and defensive) posits what is merely

different assumptions as to what behavior is rewarded by the power structure of the

international system. They do not explain “why state X did Y on Thursday”. Given that there

have been cases of overly aggressive regimes, to “sucidally passive” ones, and everything in

between, it seems reasonable to assume that a theory that claiming that all states share the

same priorities (be it security or relative power) is flawed.43 Fordham agues that the problem

gets worse for theories that assume fixed preferences. As we try to explain narrower policy

choices, where policy will vary to a larger degree than on broader questions, greater

explanatory demands are made on theories that assume fixed preferences. Simultaneously the

likelihood of explanatory power lies in unit-level variables increases. As explained above

however, this is an ever-existent problem in social sciences, what you gain in specificity you

loose in generalizability, and vice versa. But it does show the strength of NCR given the right

scope and research question.

This is also a case against additive models that posit that domestic and international variables

are distinct and act as separate influences on policy, I.e. if system-level pressures cannot

explain a given outcome, then we simply add domestic and/or unit-level variables to explain

“mistakes”. This points towards the theoretical weakness of system-level theories when it

comes to narrow policy choices.44 If we assume that state motives are not fixed and universal

in the vein of either security of power maximization, but there is in fact “wiggle room”, it

follows that international considerations interact with domestic political processes, and we

must look at both.

2.9 Assumptions of Neoclassical Realism 43 Fordham, B.O. 2009. ”The limits of neoclassical realism”, in Neoclassical Realism, The State and Foreign Policy: 255 44 Waltz for example excludes unit-level variables, but does not actually claim that system-level variables hold all explanatory power. Rather he argues his theory explains the constraints that confine states. Also, Waltz argues that Defensive Realism is a theory of international politics, not foreign policy, since he argues that it is impossible to construct a viable theory of foreign policy. Se Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics: 91 & Waltz, Kenneth. 1996. ”International Politics is Not Foreign Policy”, in Security Studies, 6: 54–57


19

A predominant feature of NCR is its lack of ‘grand’ theorizing. Unlike other forms of realism,

NCR does not approach a given research problem with the notion that regularities of foreign

policy can be deduced from system level variables. While NCR is still an emerging school of

thought, with a wide variety of different methods of research, and indeed also a wide variety

of sub-theories of foreign policy, there still are a number of common features of NCR as a

whole, beyond the notion of the importance of domestic variables in foreign policy

outcomes.45

2.9.1 Primacy of conflict groups Politics is a collective game of several actors, who have changing alliances, enemies and

goals. The fundamental unit of politics is the group, simply by the fact that politics is shaped

in a setting, be it in a democracy or a dictatorship, where there by definition are several

parties of interest involved.46 The group can take on many forms, from the city-state, to

empires, to the modern state. Within each political unit there are sub-groups, both within the

state, and on the international level where states form larger groups of interest. This

assumption however, says nothing on the extent of the group at hand (be it a several states

with a common agenda, or interests within the state) is and acts as a unitary actor.47

2.9.2 Primacy of power As touched upon above, NCR, as all schools of realism, assumes that a states power – in

essence its “place” (hierarchy) in the international system – is the primary determinant of state

behavior. This fundamental assumption is at realisms very core.48 Even though NCR places

“power” at the start of the casual chain, NCR does not acknowledge that it in itself holds all

explanatory power of foreign policy. Also, unlike structural realism (Offensive and

Defensive) NCR does not hold the view that states only and exclusively try to maximize

power and/or security.49

2.9.3 Anarchy of the international system As all theories of international relations acknowledge, the international system differs from

states in the sense that there is no overarching rule-of-law, and no leviathan. Liberalism in its

45 Se for example Loebell et al, 2009, Neoclassical Realism, The State, And Foreign Policy for an overview of different sub-theories and methods of research within the paradigm of NCR. 46 Gilpin, Robert G. 1996. ”No One Loves a Political Realist, in Frankel, ed., Realism: Restatements and Renewal: 3-26. London: Frank Cass 47 Juneau, Thomas, 2010, Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: 5 48 Rose, Gideon. 1998. ”Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy, in World Politics 51: 144-172 49 Juneau, Thomas, 2010, Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: 6


20

different forms emphasizes that the prisoners dilemma can be overbridged by schemes that

are mutually beneficial for the parties involved. Realisms well-known outlook is more bleak:

since there is no central authority, states operates in a structurally insecure environment,

where in the end the only real guarantee of survival is the power of ones own state. The state

of perpetual anarchy promotes suspicion and uncertainty. International politics is in short

conflictual by nature, and as Waltz put it, “self-help is necessarily the principle of action”.50

As a consequence, in realisms view, states are primarily interested in gaining, maintaining,

and expanding security or power. NCR accepts that self-help is a default position of state

behavior – given the anarchy of the international system - and something states revert to when

needed. But NCR introduces the notion that it is not a permanent and ever persistent goal.

2.9.4 Confined rationality Accepting anarchy as a fact of life, states seek to maximize power in order to maximize

security, in a fundamentally insecure system. Since any other behavior will be punished in the

sense that other states will gain power that will be, or can be, potentially detrimental to the

state that does not maximize power. NCR accepts this basic notion with some reservations.

Given that much of state behavior is assumed to be “determined” by system level constraints,

the room for rationality is limited. But as Zakaria argues, within the space of action that does

not “force” states to maximize power there is room for choice and rational thought on

weighing “risks, opportunities, costs and benefits”, where states can try to maximize other

goods, such as economically valuable goods.51 However, even though there exists room for

rational contemplation by state leaders on other goals than strictly power maximization, NCR

does not presuppose that states by definition act rationally within these confines.52

A useful tool of understanding why states do not necessarily act rationally is the

methodological tool of path dependency and the theory of historical institutionalism. It is a

framework of high descriptive power. It is based on the notion of increasing returns, which

breaks the “law” of diminishing returns in economics. Politics is a collective action game;

therefore political decisions are dependent on expectations of other people’s political actions

and choices. Increased participation and investment of political capital can create increasing-

return processes, making a movement path dependent. I.e. where outcomes are related

stochastically to initial conditions. The given outcome in any given ‘run’ depends on, as 50 Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics: 111 51 Zakaria, Fareed. 1998. From Wealth to Power: 20 52 Juneau, Thomas. 2010. Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: 6


21

Goldstone puts it “on the choices or outcomes of intermediate events between the initial

conditions and the outcome”.53

While this might seem self-evident at glance, coupled with the fact that politics unlike

economics lacks transparent signal systems when to “invest”, increase production or pull back

products (i.e. revert or changes policies), it makes errors (non-rational behavior) hard to both

observe and correct. Add to the mix that actors operating in such an environment tend to filter

information into mental maps, guided by social interpretations of popular opinion, customs,

norms and cultures, we begin to understand why politics is highly susceptible to path

dependent behavior.54 This highlights how fluent, imprecise and potentially hard “rational”

state behavior can be. It also underscores the relevance of studying domestic variables when

researching foreign policy decisions. NCR incorporates both path dependency and dynamics

in its analysis of domestic variables. Unlike structural realism, which posits that the

independent variable is the structure of the international system, where the main force of

pressure on states is the polarity of the world, NCR recognizes that there is a dynamic

between structure and unit/state.55 To illustrate this concept, we need to modify Figure 1 as

follows:

53 Goldstone, quoted in Ma, Shun-Yun. 2007. “Political Science at the Edge of Chaos”, in International Political Science Review: 64 54 Ma, Shun-Yun. 2007. “Political Science at the Edge of Chaos”, in International Political Science Review: 65 55 The biggest proponent of “Balance of Power” is Waltz’s strain of realist thought, where two central concepts are balancing, where one state seeks more power to counteract another, and bandwagoning, where one state tries to appease the threat. For further details on these concepts see Waltz, Kenneth N.1979. Theory of International Politics


22

2.9.5 Figure 3 – feedback in Neoclassical Realism56

2.10 Concepts of Offensive and Neoclassical Realism

To further understand both the similarities and differences of Offensive Realism and

Neoclassical Realism, I will conclude chapter two with a table that in summary shows

conflicting and shared concepts of the two theories:

Defining features Offensive Realism Neoclassical Realism

Epistemology: Positivist

Neo-positivist, post-behaviouralist

Methodology:

process-tracing, qualitative text analysis Path depencency, process-tracing

Theoretical flexibility: Low: OR is a "complete" theory

High: Varying with the research program

Scope of theory Catch-all ambitions: Yes: "mistakes" are anomalies No: occupied with specificty

Variables Independent variable: Relative position/power Relative position/power

Intermediate variables: No: lack explanatory power Yes: unit-level/domestic 56 Juneau, Thomas. 2010. Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: 11

Usable power

Intervening variable(s)

Foreign Policy


23

Assumptions Anarchy: Yes Yes

Uncertainty: Yes Yes States are rational: Yes Confined rationality Offensive military capability: Yes

Accepted, but not explicitly covered by theory

Goal of the state: Always security through power-seeking

Security when needed, not necessarily by power

Chapter 3 – Research questions, design and case

3.1 Methods of research

By his own standard, the test of Offensive Realism in Mearsheimers view boils down to the

following criteria57:

1) The evidence must show that great powers (or a great power) look for opportunities to

gain power and take advantage of them when they arise.

2) The evidence must show that great powers do not practice “self-denial” when they had

the necessary means to shift the balance of power in their favor, and that the thirst for

more power does not decline when the state has a lot of it.

3) Powerful states should seek regional hegemony whenever the possibility arises.

3.2 Research questions

Briefly recapitulating on Mearsheimers claims, he confesses that states sometimes act in

contradiction to his theory – they are in his words anomalies. But he claims this kind of

behavior invariably has negative consequences.58 From this it is possible to devise a step-by-

step test of Offensive Realism. To this end, I will look at the period just after the end of the

Cold War, and the process that led up to the decision to both let NATO continue to exist and

expand (ca 1992 – 1999). The salient characteristics of this will be revealed in great detail in

the case section. The first research question I will try to answer is:

57 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 168 58 ibid: 12


24

1. Is NATO’s continued existence and expansion to be considered an anomaly by the

Offensive Realist standard of Mearsheimer?

If so, I will try to answer the second research question:

2. Counterfactually test if the anomaly unexplained by Mearsheimers Offensive Realism

had negative consequences in the given case.

Finally, with Mearsheimers rebuttal of the explanatory power of intermediate variables in

mind:

3. Try to determine if the anomaly can be traced to unit-level/domestic variables that act

as intermediate variables between the independent variable, relative power, and the

dependent variable of foreign policy.

To highlight the logic behind this step-by-step approach, the research design can be shown

visually.

3.2.1 Figure 4 – research design

One country – two cases

Consistent with being an anomaly?

Offensive Realism strengthened

NATO’s post-‐Cold War existence and expansion

Consistent with

Offensive Realism?

Did it have negative consequences?


25

Mearsheimer is the first in line to confess that his theory does not explain all, and that there

indeed are anomalies. Even if I am able to determine if this is the case, it will not falsify

Offensive Realism. But coupled with questions 2 and 3, I will be able to cast doubts on

Offensive Realism on at least two accounts.

First, I would be able to refute that an anomaly did in fact have negative consequences as

Mearsheimer claims it would have. Essentially showing that the U.S., even though they did

not behave as Offensive Realism predicts, their behavior was in line with their goals. If this is

the case it challenges the basic logic of Offensive Realism: States can in fact have goals, and

strategies to attain them, which are in contradiction to the ‘logic’ and pressures of the system

and still not suffer. In essence, this test challenges Mearsheimer structuralism.

Second, if an anomaly can be traced to unit-level variables in line with the NCR theory it will

cast a shadow on Offensive Realisms explanatory variables in the short run.

3.3 The second best design

A more robust research design, which I originally planned to employ, entailed testing my

three hypothesis on two cases - one most likely and one least likely. Ideally it would consist

of one case during the Cold War and another post-Cold War. If I were to find that the most

likely case of Offensive Realism was an anomaly, it would constitute a serious critique of the

theory, and also strengthen my least likely study. Due to constraints in time and the space

available in a master’s thesis, but mostly my inability to find a suitable Cold War case close in

time to my post-Cold War case, I chose to concentrate on one case. This is a weakness of my

research design, but one I am aware of.

Can the outcomes be traced to unit-‐level variables?


26

3.4 Methodological standards

Realism as a whole has a positivist view on ontology. In short, there is an objective world,

and there are objective factors that influence state behavior, factors that can be objects of

research. Also, to a varying degree, depending on which branch of the realist tree we look at,

regularities of state behavior can be deduced from variables previously mentioned in the

theory section. Since Offensive Realism puts so much weight on system level explanations,

foreign policy is assumed to be rational responses to external factors. As previously

mentioned, unit-level variables does not come into play in the Offensive Realist framework.59

Posit that NCR is ‘right’ in its emphasis on unit-level (intermediate) variables, if we are to

truly understand the foreign policy choices of the U.S. – would this falsify Offensive

Realism? Not necessarily. The test of a given theory, in a positivist methodology, is not if the

theory is descriptive. It is rather if it gives good approximations. Mearsheimers own analogy,

where states are ‘billiard balls’ moved by outside pressure, can be used as an illustrative

example of positivist methodology60: A skilled billiard player can be described as just that,

skilled. But if we want to explain his skill, we explain it by geometry, even though the billiard

player is not, and cannot be described as a mathematician with a pen and paper at the table.

Put differently, Offensive Realism might be off in its descriptions and assumptions of reality.

But by the positivist standard, it is not a problem if competing theories (other realist theories,

liberalism, constructivism, etc.) are more “realistic” in their descriptions of reality. The ‘real’

test of a theory is if it provides good predictions.61

Before delving into the case, and finally the analysis, results and conclusions in chapter 4, it

needs to be stated that it is possible that the case is not an anomaly by this methodological

standard – the state acted in fact in accordance to Offensive Realisms maxims. But if this is so

it will not necessarily falsify the competing theory of NCR. Partly because a single case

arguably does not constitute enough empirical support to falsify a theory, and also since it is

possible that the U.S. behaved in accordance to Offensive Realism’s maxims due to unit-level

59 see Chapter 2: 2.2 “Differences and likeness with Defensive Realism” 60 Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. ”The False Promise of International Institutions”, in International Security Vol. 19 No. 3: 48 61 Friedman, Milton. 1966. Essays in Positive Economics: 15


27

variables. Which theory is ‘right’ might in part boil down to level of abstraction and

methodological standards, in the sense that Offensive Realism description of relevant

variables might be wrong, but it still provides good approximations of foreign policy.

Essentially, states might follow a whole different rationale than Offensive Realism, but it

‘looks’ like they adhere to Offensive Realisms maxims.

3.5 Limitations of Neoclassical Realism As noted previously, NCR is not a system-level theory. It does not explicitly challenge or tries

to falsify Offensive Realisms core assumptions, as it acknowledges the primacy of relative

power in the system as the primary independent variable.62 Rather it challenges Offensive

Realism on one simple point: What are the relevant intermediate variables? If the scope of

NCR is not more ambitious than this, one might argue that it is more a methodological tool

than a competing explanatory theory, since it does not challenge Offensive Realism on it’s

own level. I would agree with this to a point. However, criticizing the theory for not trying to

explain “all” is essentially a normative statement of how ambitious a theory ‘should’ be. It is

not a critique of the theory for failing empirical tests.

Unlike Mearsheimer, NCR:s proponents are not trying to predict the future and give

normative recommendations on policy. Mearsheimer has ‘predicted’ a number of things not

yet passed: The U.S. leaving Europe, the rise of China as a regional hegemon, a new power

struggle between Germany/Russia, and The U.S./China, and the nuclear rearmament of

Germany.63 All of this might happen sometime in the future. But as Keynes put it: “the long

run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead”. Thus, even if

NCR only modifies or deepens our knowledge of Offensive Realism by focusing on

intermediate variables that are relevant in the short run, it has real world relevance. Even

though it does not challenge Offensive Realism on the systemic level.

3.6 Material

This case study will be based on historical first and second hand sources. Using historical

material necessitates a certain caution. First, the source material must be authentic. Second,

sources must be neutral. This criterion entails the necessity of confirmation; we preferably 62 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 3 63 See for example Mearsheimer, John J. 1990. “Back to the Future”, in International Security Vol. 15, No. 1 & Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 392


28

need more than one source. We need to take into account the ‘distance’ between the historian

and the case; first hand sources are naturally preferable to second hand sources. The last

aspect of neutrality entails the storytellers or historians level of independence from the case.

Third, simultaneity in all material – especially first hand sources - is preferable to later-day

accounts. Last but not least, we must account for, and balance any tendency in source material

to distort actual sequence of events.64

While all these factors are highly relevant to keep in mind. I will primarily use historical

second hand sources that are peer reviewed and published. The study is also helped by the

fact that the cases is still very recent in history, and that some of the points I try to underpin,

that are not analytical, are of a very factual nature: “X did Y on Z”, not requiring academic

support per se. Part of my study’s source material is official statements, communiqués and

speeches delivered on the topic at hand. From a methodological perspective, the challenge is

to put those kinds of sources in their correct context: why they were said, and how they

influenced events.

3.7 Methods

The nature of my three research questions necessitates different methods for each. Question 1

is theoretical in nature: My analysis is based on trying to determine the construct validity of

Mearsheimers theory when it comes to NATO’s existence and expansion. It is essentially a

comparison of how consistently the case adheres to theory.

Question 2 is a counterfactual test. This entails trying to identify the dependent variable,

counterfactually remove it, and by deductive reasoning try to determine if the sequence of

events would have played out the same way. In a stringent methodological language is it a test

of the value of the dependent variable if the explanatory variable would have assumed another

value. This test raises what is called “the fundamental problem of causal interference”.65

Since we cannot replay history with all other variables “frozen” at their current value, we can

in fact never know for sure. This is a problem of all social sciences occupied with

64 Esaiasson et al. 2005. Metodpraktikan: chapter 15 (swedish) 65 King, Keohane & Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research: 79


29

counterfactuals, but carefully choosing and arguing for why ‘this’ explanatory variable is

relevant to the outcome can to a degree mitigate it.66

For question 3, I will use path dependency as my primary methodological tool. It is a separate

framework from “synchronic causality”, where one tries to determine if variations in current

variables effect current outcomes.67 Rather, path dependency traces the historical path of the

outcome in question. Two key points in this framework are sequence and timing. As the

casual chain is assumed to have several interconnected variables, where each step of the line

influences the variables ‘downstream’, “the same event may have different effects when in the

sequence it occurs”.68 Another feature of path dependency are critical junctures, points in time

where previous events allow for contingent choices that may set sequence of events on a path

dependent trajectory, subject to an increasing returns process.

3.8 The Case: NATO cold-‐War War existence and expansion in Europe NATO is short for (The) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an intergovernmental military

alliance formed in 1949 by twelve western nations in Europe and North America. The

organization rests on the North Atlantic Treaty, a document of fourteen articles codifying

rules of military cooperation and mutual defense. The most defining article is number five,

which stipulates that “..the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in

Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all[..]”.69 The first

NATO secretary general, Lord Ismay, famously stated that the purpose of the organization

was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.70 Put less bluntly,

the overarching goal of NATO was the defense of Western Europe from the Soviet Union

(USSR) and the communist equivalent of NATO, The Warsaw Pact (The “Treaty of

Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance”). In Mearsheimers terminology, NATO is

defensive alliance, and as such an example of external balancing. During the Cold War, the

twelve founding member states were joined by four more European states in the fifties and

eighties.

66 Esaiasson et al. 2005. Metodpraktikan: 100 67 Pierson, Paul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependency and the Study of Politics”, in The American Political Science Review Vol. 94 no. 2: 263 68 ibid: 264 69 NATO – Official texts: The North Atlantic Treaty, April 4, 1949 70 Reynolds, David. 1994. The origins of the Cold War in Europe: International perspectives: 13


30

The Warsaw Pact effectively ceased to exist in 1991 when then Czechoslovakia left the

organization after thirty-six years. The Soviet Union itself was declared officially dissolved

on December 25, 1991, ending the fifty-four year long Cold War. The dissolution of the

Soviet Union removed the de facto opponent of NATO and its raison d'etre.

Contrary to what was predicted, NATO was not dissolved soon thereafter.71 Rather the

opposite, as the organization has expanded substantially post-Cold War. Three former Soviet

block countries joined in 1999, another seven in 2004, and two in 2009.72 The organization

has more than doubled its membership base, from twelve to twenty-eight states - the majority

of which joined after the end of the Cold War. Another four former Soviet block countries are

affiliated with NATO, and are in various stages of attaining memberships.73 The de-facto

“border” of NATO is now shared with Russia proper, Belarus and The Ukraine.

Lord Ismay would have been proud of his organization in hindsight. It not only succeeded in

keeping “the Russians out”, it expanded on its territory. But like many others he would also

probably be perplexed by its continued existence and the expansion eastward after the

organization lost its raison d'etre – to balance the Warsaw Pact. The question that begs to be

answered is if this expansion is an anomaly of Offensive Realism.

Chapter 4 – Analysis

4.1 Analysis: NATO post-‐Cold War existence and expansion in Europe (question 1)



The short answer is a ‘yes’. To reveal why this is the case, we first need to keep in mind two

things: First, Offensive Realism assumes that the primary goal of all action is to further ones

own security. Second, the fact that the United States possesses without a par the world’s most

71 See for example Mearsheimer. 1990. “Back to the Future”, in International Security vol. 15 No. 1: 5 72 1999: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland. 2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia. 2009: Albania, Croatia 73 Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina all have a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the pre-stage of membership, and Georgia is a part of the so called ”Intensified Dialogue”


31

powerful military force.74 We also need to look at some of the different strategies of Great

Powers mentioned in chapter 2, section 2.5: “central strategies of Offensive Realism”, and the

one I left out since it is in Mearsheimers view not used by Great Powers: bandwagoning, the

case where weaker states ally with stronger ones, either because they recognize the futility of

resisting a greater power, or from expected profits of an alliance with a Great Power.

Mearsheimer explicitly argues that Great Powers do not bandwagon, since it goes against a

basic assumption of his theory.75 When a state bandwagon, it gives up – be it only temporary

– its ambitions of gaining more power by ceding power, influence and forgoing a range of

foreign policy options to the more powerful state it lines itself with. In Mearsheimers own

words: “The evidence must show that Great Powers (or a Great Power) look for opportunities

to gain power and take advantage of them when they arise”.76 Bandwagoning should

therefore be a non-option for the Great Powers of Europe (Great Britain and France in

particular).

There is an ambiguity in Mearsheimers definition of Great Powers, and he operationalizes it

somewhat arbitrary. He first defines Great Powers as “being able to put up a serious fight”,

and that they must possess nuclear arms capable of second-strike capability.77 This would

qualify the UK and France as Great Powers. However, in the footnotes he argues that the UK,

Germany and France were Great Powers up until WW II.78 But he concludes his book by

positing that the UK, France, Germany and Italy all have sufficient resources to be Great

Powers (i.e. post-Cold War).79 I will here follow his original definition, by which I argue that

the UK and France are Great Powers, as they possess the strongest military forces in Western

Europe with nuclear second-strike capabilities (in fact, the only ones who do). A commonly

used ordering system of states in terms power is to divide them into three categories:

superpowers, great powers and regional powers. To qualify as a Great Power rather than just a

regional one, a state must possess the ability to project power beyond its own region. Both the

74 US military spending as of 2011 makes up 40% of total world military spending. In nominal figures The U.S. spends six times as much on arms as China, which places second in the global ranking. Se Global Security for figures 75 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 162 76 ibid: 168 77 ibid: 5 78 ibid: no. 7, page 404 79 ibid: 392


32

UK and France possess this ability, and are in fact expanding it further by developing, what in

a military sense is the pinnacle of power projection, new aircraft carriers.80

During the Cold War, the external balancing alliance of NATO made sense from an Offensive

Realist perspective. But as the Soviet threat ceased to exist in 1991, we would expect the

dissolution of NATO as well. As the end of the Cold War left the United States the

uncontested potential hegemon, and NATO then - by Offensive Realisms definition - went

from an external balancing coalition of The Warsaw Pact, to a bandwagoning alliance with no

perceivable enemy, from the perspective of the Great Powers of Europe. Mearsheimer himself

states: “alliances are only temporary marriages of convenience.”81 But NATO is not only still

in existence, it is expanding. Mearsheimer recognizes the strength of this line of reasoning as

he counters with the argument that the continued military cooperation within the NATO

framework during the 1990s is not an anomaly per se as there is “intertia” in changing

policies, and Europe within the structure of the European Union is slowly developing it’s own

independent military capabilities.82 Ten years down the road from the publication of The

Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), we can see that his predictions do not really hold.

The “independent” military power of The EU versus NATO forces was codified in 2002, in

the “right of first refusal” – only if NATO refused to act would the EU have the possibility to

draw on NATO assets. France, who once left the NATO command structure in the fifties and

sixties, returned to full membership in 2009. European powers are still very much integrated

into NATO. The European Great Powers are not only still members; they have also

participated in a number of U.S. led military operations under NATO flag.83 The latest

example being the U.S. led operation in Libya in 2011.

Since no state can be sure of the others intentions according to Realism in large, a point

Offensive Realism stresses, we would expect post-Cold War either 1) buck-passing between

Great Powers to counteract potential U.S. global hegemony, or 2) the formation of a new

external balancing coalition consisting of the European and/or Asian Great Powers balancing

against the United States. This would be in line with Mearsheimers own prediction: “The

more relative power the potential hegemon controls, the more likely it is that all of the

80 The Queen Elizabeth and Porte-Avions 2 classes 81 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 33 82 ibid: 391 83 1995/1999/2001 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, respectively


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threatened states in the system will forgo buck-passing and form a balancing coalition”.84 As

history shows, this has not happened.

If we look at NATO expansion through the lenses of Offensive Realism from a U.S.

perspective, what constitutes consistency with the theory depends on where you sit.

Mearsheimer himself argues that the U.S. has “no appetite for conquest and domination

outside of the Western Hemisphere” (meaning The Americas).85 The U.S. is assumed to be an

offshore balancer, only intervening when they feel their interests threatened on another

continent. This statement rests on the premise that the current world order is not unipolar,

where only one Great Power exists with global reach, which in turn flows from Mearsheimers

geopolitical argument of “the stopping power of water”.86 The argument entails two parts, a

theoretical statement as to what Great Powers want, and a practical statement as to what they

can in practice gain.

Mearsheimer argues that Great Powers want to be hegemon in the system. The logic of

Offensive Realism interpreted stringently dictates that they should strive for hegemony in the

global system since it is the only way of permanently solving the security dilemma. But he

argues that the stopping power of water prevents them from projecting military force globally.

Thus, the world is locked in a perpetual power struggle of regional hegemons, were regional

hegemony constitutes the “pinnacle of power”.87

But as Layne argues, “capabilities, not liquid, determine weather water stops”.88 The

capabilities at hand would be a more relevant variable. The United States not only possesses

the world’s most powerful navy, with unparalleled power projection capabilities, it also has a

significant military presence on European soil.89 And if the U.S. lacks capabilities, Offensive

84 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 268 85 ibid: 391 86 The argument basically entails that it’s hard, next to impossible, to project force across large bodies of water onto territory occupied by other Great Powers. Se: Toft, Peter. 2005. ”John J. Mearsheimer: an offensive realist between geopolitics and power”, in Journal of International Relations and Development: 398 87 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 34-35 88 Layne, Christopher. 2002. ”The Poser Child for Offensive Realism: America as a Global Hegemon”, in Security Studies 12, no. 2: 18 89 More than a fifth of total US forces are stationed abroad. In Germany alone, The U.S. military operates some twenty bases.


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Realism dictates that they should strive to develop them to overcome the stopping power of

water.

Any way you cut it, Mearsheimers Offensive Realism seem to comes up short in explaining

NATO:s continued existence and expansion. We would expect either one of two scenarios, 1)

Withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe and NATO post-Cold War in the vein of offshore

balancer, or 2) A forceful escalation of U.S. military presence in Europe, in the vein of power-

maximization and overcoming the “stopping power” of water.

If we take Mearsheimer on his word, that offshore balancers (the U.S.) do not provoke

balancing coalitions against themselves, logic dictates that the U.S. would withdraw from

NATO since the Great Powers of Europe do not constitute “dangerous rivals”, and the actual

dangerous rival, The Soviet block is defeated.90 If we assign real relevance to “stopping

power” argument, it should flow both ways: If the U.S. as a regional hegemon cannot attain

global hegemony, then no other state should be able to achieve it either.91 Consequently, it

would be downright counterproductive of the U.S. to tie up resources in Europe and in

NATO, let alone broaden the alliance to include Eastern European countries, who effectively

becomes the responsibility of the U.S. to protect under NATO Article V. NATO expansion

seems from this line of reasoning to be the opposite of furthering U.S. security.

If we instead interpret Offensive Realism more stringently, and do not assign any explanatory

power to the auxiliary geopolitical “stopping power of water” argument, the U.S. would have

an interest in the dissolution of NATO, the development of capabilities to overcome the

problem of power projection across the Atlantic, and in the end subjugating Europe’s Great

Powers as vassal states. Of course, neither 1) nor 2) has happened.

One might object to my analysis above, arguing that from a U.S. perspective it is not a bad

thing to have European powers bandwagoning within the structure of NATO. Quite the

opposite as U.S. relative power and influence would increase as European states align

themselves with U.S. foreign policy goals. However this line of reasoning rests on the

premise that the U.S. is a global hegemon, whose interest is to subjugate and keep other

90 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 391 91 Layne, Christopher. 2002. ”The Poser Child for Offensive Realism: America as a Global Hegemon”, in Security Studies 12, no. 2: 126


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powers dependent on their might and good will. And Mearsheimer argues that the U.S. nor

any other power neither is nor can be a global hegemon.

Thus, in summary, Offensive Realism fails in explaining NATO’s continued existence and

expansion. It is an anomaly by a ‘Mearsheimian’ account. NATO’s existence has not

furthered U.S. power (in the military sense, a point I will return to in the final discussion) in

Europe, quite the opposite as they are bound to offer protection to more and more countries.

Neither have they sought hegemony over Europe, or a withdrawal to a purely offshore

balancing strategy, as he would assume.


2. Counterfactually test if an anomaly unexplained by Mearsheimers Offensive Realism

had negative consequences in the given case.

Regardless if NATO stayed an external balancing coalition post-Cold War, or became a

bandwagoning coalition, it is no more than a tool that we assume fills a need of some or all

members. After all, NATO is not a political entity with a will of its own. Thus, to test this

hypothesis we need to narrow down the question somewhat, and identify to whom the

anomaly (NATO post-Cold War existence and expansion) might, or might not, have had

negative consequences for. Therefore we must look at a Great Power that is a member state. I

will in this section look at the U.S. again, for the following reasons: as the U.S. supplies the

majority of the security of NATO it seems, rationally, to be in their best interest not to extend

security guarantees to countries that need more protection than they contribute in collective

security. Thus, the U.S. would likely have the strongest rationale not to expand the alliance.

To test the hypothesis we can devise a strong and a weak test. The strong one being to

counterfactually test if the dissolution of NATO would have furthered U.S. state security or

at least left the country no less well off than it is today (in the sense that the country would

have had more power and been more secure if NATO had dissolved). This is what I argued in

the previous section would be the consistent scenario according to Offensive Realism. The

weak test consists of a comparison of the Great Powers foreign policy goals, pertaining to


36

state security (which is what Mearsheimer assume to be the primary goal of all foreign

policy92), and how consistently this goal was furthered by the NATO membership.

To answer these two questions in full, it is necessary to identify if the current threats to the

U.S. are causally connected with its commitments to NATO, and its actions within the

organization. The short answer is ‘not so much’. Looking at official policy briefs and the U.S.

National Security Strategy, we find to no surprise that the “enduring national interest” of the

U.S. is the security of the country, its citizens and allies and partners.93 This official document

also identifies a number of threats and challenges of more or less a military nature: The Al-

Qaida network in large, and it’s operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan in particular, the

nuclearization of Iran and North Korea, completing a transition of a sovereign and democratic

Iraq, and establishing a Arab-Israeli peace.94

The defining security paradigm of the U.S. post-Cold War has been ‘The War on Terror’ and

the asymmetrical wars fought in the Middle East. Starting with the terrorist attacks of 9/11,

the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 – the first and only time NATO Article V has been

invoked – continuing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, up until present day low intensity

fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on the border of Pakistan. The famous ‘Axis of Evil’ Bush

coined in his 2002 state of the union address were/are Iran, Iraq and North Korea - all

countries well beyond the core territories of NATO.

There are many different opinions on, and as to why the U.S. is persistently occupied with

military operations in the Middle East. A popular held opinion is that the U.S. needs to have a

military presence in the oil rich areas of the world.95 Geopolitics as it were. Regardless, it’s

hard to prove or disprove if this – access to oil - indeed was the motivator of the George W.

Bush I & II, and Obama I administrations for the continued U.S. presence in the Middle East.

We know for a fact that the first George W. Bush administration sought to pressure

Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders before 9/11 to hand over Al-Qaeda operatives.96 We also know

92 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 3 93 National Security Strategy – The White House. 2011. 94 ibid: Chapter III: ”Advancing our interests” 95 Se for example Duffield, John S. 2005. Oil and the Iraq War. 96 Coll, Steve. 2004. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001: 720


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that the U.S. had an interest in influencing Afghanistan and Iraq long before 9/11, as U.S.

Taliban support in the eighties, and the first Gulf War shows.

However, the 9/11 attacks are arguably the triggers of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and

was – at least publicly for the administration – a primary motivator for the 2003 invasion of

Iraq, as Saddam Hussein was pictured as both providing aid to Al-Qaeda and being a security

threat in his own right.97 The first George W. Bush administration was decisively leaning

towards an isolationist stance on several key foreign policy issues both before and after the

9/11 attacks, as shown in the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia,

The Kyoto Protocol, and not supporting the International Criminal Court. The administration

was also a supporter of tariffs and protectionist policies towards the EU, which caused the

WTO to intervene on at least two occasions.98

So why are any of these points relevant to the question at hand? They all goes to show that,

counterfactually, had not 9/11 taken place, the plausible course of action of both the Bush I &

II administrations would have also been an equal isolationist / non-interventionist stance on

‘nation building’ and use of force. It’s telling to this point that the so-called ‘Bush Doctrine’

of pre-emptive warfare was adopted after 9/11.99

Posit that NATO had dissolved in the early nineties as The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist –

would any, or all of events mentioned above, had taken place? Arguably, yes. Without the

9/11 attacks it seems highly unlikely that a coalition under U.S. leadership would have

invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and subsequently expanding the “War on Terror” to Iraq no

more than two years later. The ‘triggers’ thus, are the 9/11 attacks, and they cannot be said to

be linked or motivated by U.S. NATO membership or the actions of the U.S. within the

organization. If anything, NATO operations during the nineties should have lessened Islamic

extremism in large as the bombing campaigns of 1995 and 1999 in then Yugoslavia were

aimed at preventing a genocide of the predominantly Muslim Bosnian and Albanian

communities.100

97 U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell’s speech to The United Nations General Assembly, transcribed by The Guardian. 98 Becker & Meller. September 1, 2004. “U.S. Loses Trade Cases and Faces Penalties”, in New York Times. 99 White House Archives: National Security Strategy Section V. 2002/2006. 100 NATO press release. 12 April 1999.


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As Al-Qaeda is a clandestine organization it is not an easy task to pinpoint their precise

motivator or on what basis it’s leaders make their decisions. Sources point towards the Gulf

War as a starting point of Osama Bin-Laden animosity towards the U.S., later infused into Al-

Qaeda. But not due to the U.S. fighting the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. Iraq was also a potential

threat towards Saudi Arabia, and the Bin Laden clan has intimate ties with the royal House of

Saud.101 Rather the animosity is argued to stem from The House of Saud choosing U.S.

(“Christian” protection as it were) over Bin Laden mujahedeen fighters in Gulf War I.102

One of the few publicly accessible sources of material pertaining to Al-Qaeda strategy is the

document ‘Al Qaeda Strategy to the Year 2020’, made public by high ranking Al-Qaeda

officer Saif al-Adel (Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi), retold in The Secret History of Al Qaeda

(2006). It tells of the strategy of attacking the U.S., provoking an invasion of a Muslim

country, expanding the conflict to neighboring countries, and effectively tying down U.S.

military forces in a war of attrition – what is essentially a ‘bait and bleed’ strategy.103

The United States current security concerns pertaining to threats of a military and/or terrorist

nature –which are heavily focused on the Middle East and Asia - are not casually connected to

NATO membership or the expansion of the organization in Europe. But has U.S.

engagements within NATO left the country worse off security wise, as Offensive Realism

would assume? The answer to that question is ‘no’. Regardless if the Al Qaeda strategy

mentioned above is explicitly used or not, it is factually true that the U.S. is engaged in a war

of attrition that is very costly. From just 2001-2007 the two wars cost in excess of 500 billion

US dollars.104 The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2017 both wars could cost

in excess of 2.4 trillion US dollars.105 The SIPRI database shows that on average The U.S. has

spent around 4% of GDP per year on the military in the 21st century – not a remarkably high

figure in percent, but an enormous figure in real terms, and approximately four fifths of yearly

Cold War spending.106

101 PBS, “About the Bin Laden family”. 102 Jehl, Douglas. 2001. ”A Nation Challanged”, in The New York Times. 103 Atwan, Abdel Bari. 2006. The Secret History of Al Qaeda: 221 104 Congressional Budget Office. Oktober 24, 2007 105 Council on Foreign Relations. March 11, 2008 106 SIRPI Military Expenditure Database


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The continued warfare, occupation and nation building in the Middle East is draining on the

U.S. economy and stretching its military resources thin. The strategically sound move –

following both Offensive Realisms maxims and a military perspective - would have been to

draw back the still significant troop presence in Europe to North America, in order to

safeguard mainland USA as an off-shore balancer would. But this has not happened. Granted,

Article III of the North Atlantic Treaty states that “..the Parties [..] will maintain and develop

their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”.107 This could be argued to

point towards a U.S. responsibility to keep troops in Europe, which in turn would indicate that

given current U.S. security threats, counterfactually, the U.S. would be better off if NATO

had not existed and expanded. However, there is much room for leeway within this

formulation, as both Great Britain and Germany have cut military expenses and reduced

number of troops substantially since the end of the Cold War.108

One might argue – correctly - that U.S. engagements in the Middle Easts benefits from

keeping a military infrastructure in Europe somewhat intact, as Europe is closer by than

mainland USA, facilitating easier logistics. The troops left in Europe (roughly 75.000 as of

2011109), should then reasonably be regarded as support of the military campaigns in the

Middle East, not as a way of fulfilling U.S. obligations under NATO Article III. Arguably

then, the existence and expansion of NATO per se is then not to “blame” for the U.S. not

offshore balancing - it is U.S. engagements in the Middle East that necessitates a continued

European presence.

In summary, the sections above show that NATO’s continued existence and expansion in

Europe has not been harmful to the U.S. as Mearsheimer would assume. Neither can we make

the claim that U.S. security has been negatively affected by NATO’s continued existence and

expansion – as nothing points towards a causal connection between the threats to U.S.

security highlighted in the National Security Strategy and the organization per se. A prime

example of NATO lessening U.S. power and security would have been if an adversary

employed for example a bait and bleed strategy against some other NATO member state,

which would have invoked Article V. The U.S. was arguably both baited and bleed by Al-

107 NATO homepage. “The North Atlantic Treaty”. April 4, 1949 108 UPI.com. “Germany military faces drastic budget cuts”. May 27, 2010 109 Stars and Stripes. ”NATO officer confers with allies on U.S. force levels in Europe”. February 24, 2011


40

Qaeda, but it was the U.S. who was attacked and then invoked Article V in the run-up to the

invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. NATO, if anything, actually helped to further U.S. security

on this account as the U.S. was assisted in overthrowing the Taliban.

However, compelling evidence shows that the continued U.S. military presence in Europe and

membership of NATO might in fact be in line with Offensive Realism, but not in the way

Mearsheimer interprets his own theory. However, that is a somewhat different discussion, as I

am primarily occupied with testing Mearsheimers interpretation of his own theory. I will

return to this point in the following chapter.





Offensive Realism fails to satisfactory explain NATO’s existence post-Cold War and the

organizations expansion. The question to be asked is if there are unit-level variables that come

into play. To a point, it is obvious and not in contradiction to Offensive Realism, as by

definition both the continued existence and especially the expansion of the organization

depended on concrete political action and decisions: nothing just “happens”.

It is possible that NATO expansion was path dependent from the get go, and unit-level

variables – for example decisions of policy makers – were simply “transmission belts” of a

pressure from the ‘system’; the expansion was primed to happen as a natural sequence of

events, i.e. it was path dependent. After all, NATO had expanded during the Cold War; as

such it could be at a glance regarded as natural that it should continue to do so.

Even though I argue that Offensive Realism fails to give satisfactory answers to the previous

questions in this thesis, if this turns out to be the case, it would be in line with Offensive

Realisms general assumption of the system level as the sole variable with explanatory

power.110 However, if the evidence points towards a path dependent process triggered by a (or

several) unit-level variables, in which “outcomes at a critical juncture trigger feedback

110 Rosecrance, Richard N. 2002. ”War and Peace”, review article in World Politics Vol. 55 No. 1: 141


41

mechanism that reinforce the recurrence of a particular pattern into the future”, then the

theory of NCR, which incorporates path dependency as a tool of research, proves that we by

necessity need to look at unit-level variables to cover all explanatory variables.111

The strongest form of rebuttal of Mearsheimers general assumption of the primacy of system

level variables would be 1) to show that it was ceteris paribus as likely or more likely that

NATO would dissolve rather than continue to exist and expand 2) Find a critical juncture

contingent on a, or several, unit-level variables that - possibly - created a increasing returns

process, making the movement towards expansion path dependent.

4.3.1 A new raison d’état The expansion of NATO is a puzzle for political scientists. An underlying assumption of

theories that presuppose states behave rationally is that alliances are marriages of

convenience. The purpose of an alliance is to increase security to its members by deterring

external attack. Why then expand the alliance with new members that require more protection

than they would contribute in collective security? And if there is no real threat, why then not

dismantle the alliance? Before the end of the Cold War, Mearsheimer rationally assumed that

NATO would cease to exist. But it did not. Frank Schimmelfening answers this puzzle in the

following way: “In the constructivist perspective, the enlargement of an international

organization is primarily conceive of as a process of internal socialization”112. He argues that

NATO has become an organization not occupied primarily with collective security, but by

western “values and norms”: Democracy, liberty and rule of law. NATO states are, with the

exemption of Turkey, western democracies, and have a preference that other states share their

values. The argument is underlined by NATO’s own Study on NATO Enlargement (1995),

which stresses several (new) requirements for membership; civilian and democratic control of

the military, settling ethnic disputes peacefully, and strengthening free institutions, among

others.113 Empirical support points towards the validity of this explanation, as Hungary which

had made great strides on meeting these political goals, was admitted in the first post-Cold

111 The definition of path dependency by Pierson and Skocpol, quoted in Ma, Shun-Yuns ”Political Science at the Edge of Chaos”, in International Political Science Review Vol. 28 No. 1: 64 112 Shimmelfenning, Frank, quoted in Kydd, Andrew. 2001. ”Trust building, trust breaking”, in International Organization Vol. 55 No. 4: 805 113 NATO offical texts: Study on NATO Enlargement. September 3, 1995


42

War expansion in 1999 despite being land-locked from other NATO countries and having

little strategic value.114

This explanation is in line with two of NCR:s basic assumptions; States do not necessarily act

rationally, and within the space of action that do not “force” states to maximize security – The

Warsaw Pact was no more a threat - they can pursue goals pertaining to other values, such as

norms, customs and ideals. As Lepgold states, it is (also) in line with what regime theory

suggests, it’s easier to modify existing institutions than to build new ones.115

The question to be answered is if NATO:s exclusively western members ca 1989 – 1992

regarded NATO’s evolvement as the natural course of events, i.e. had it the characteristics of

path dependency? Although Realism as a whole does not assign much relevance (or any in the

case of Offensive Realism) to ideology, the Cold War was at least in political rhetoric a battle

of ideologies, and NATO was the tool of western democracies to defeat the threat of

communism.116 As such a natural “evolvement” of the organization, as the threat of

communism ceased to exist, could have been in the minds of western leaders the

transformation of NATO into a spearhead of western liberal democracy into former

communist countries.

So is this the case? The reshaping of NATO is based on the document New Strategic Concept,

issued in 1990 and adopted in 1991 as guiding principles, challenges and goals of the

organization. The document underscores that the basic security function of the alliance has

not changed, but the new security environment offers “new opportunities” to frame its

strategy within a “broad approach” to security.117 The new security risks are not foremost

calculated attacks on members, but rather “the adverse consequences of instabilities that may

arise from the serious economic, social and political difficulties, including ethnic rivalries and

territorial disputes, which are faced by many countries in central and eastern Europe”.118

114 Kydd, Andrew. 2001. ”Trust building, trust breaking”, in International Organization Vol. 55 No. 4: 807 115 Lepgold, Joseph. 1998. ”NATO’s post-Cold War Collective Action Problem”, in International Security Vol. 23 No. 1: 80 116 The most famous example of this kind of rhetoric is perhaps Ronald Reagan calling The Soviet Union an “Evil Empire” in 1983. 117 NATO offical texts: The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept: Security challanges and risks: section 9. November 7, 1991 118 ibid: section 14


43

Essentially, in 1991 the inner workings of East Europe became in writing the concern of

NATO. In the following section I will reveal the logic and factual premises behind this

reorientation, as neither the redefinition of what constitute security threats, nor the expansion

of the alliance was a self-evident evolvement from Cold War to post-Cold War.

Eyal for example argues that “the West” actually suggested to former Warsaw Pact members

between 1989-1991 as Russia seeded its vassal states that the pact should be maintained to aid

arms control, and that any talk of a military alliance between the west and former eastern

block countries was “old-fashioned”.119 Unfortunately Eyal does not substantiate these claims

by sources. But if true, it is a stark reminder of how different NATO of today is, with its

‘peace-keeping’ missions across the globe, and NATO of just a few years ago.

The breakup of the USSR reshuffled many national boundaries and brought to the fore ethnic

conflicts suppressed in Europe during the Cold War. A variable that coincided with NATO’s

reorientation expressed in New Strategic Concept was the 1991 breakout of war(s) in

Yugoslavia, and the number of refugees the long conflict produced. This seems to constitute a

critical juncture, a real breaking point in the evolution of the organization. As NATO’s

European members saw and felt by influx of refugees the strategic distinction between in-area

and out of area interests was rendered increasingly obsolete.120 A way of dealing with this

new kind of security threat was needed – and NATO, by now a well-oiled security institution

encompassing almost exclusively European powers was there to fill the shoes. This

explanation fits with regime theory: As there was no competing European security alliance in

existence, the easiest course of action was to modify the existing one.121 In 1992 NATO

agreed to enforce decisions of the UN Security Council, and started monitoring the UN arms

embargo on the Balkans the same year, which later evolved into enforcing a no-fly zone in

Bosnia, and later a “war” in itself against the Republic of Serbia.

If Yugoslavia had not “happened”, would NATO have ceased to exist? The purely rational-

based arguments and theories fail to explain why it didn’t. International regime theory

presupposes that an institution needs a new rationale to keep existing. Without the Yugoslavia 119 Eyal, Jonathan. 1997. ”NATO’s Enlargement: Anatomy of a Decision”, in International Affairs Vol. 73 No. 4: 699, 700 120 Lepgold, Joseph. 1998. ”NATO’s post-Cold War Collective Action Problem”, in International Security Vol. 23 No. 1: 81 121 See Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony


44

war, NATO would not have had one in the formative years at the end of the Cold War. Then

U.S. Vice President Al Gore echoed this sentiment when he in 1994 said: “everyone realizes

that a military alliance, when faced with a fundamental change in the threat for which it was

founded, either must define a convincing new rationale or become decrepit”.122 The only

theory that seems to offer some explanatory power in this counterfactual scenario is the

constructivist approach of NATO as a socialization mechanism. But would that have been

enough? It seems likely that the reorientation would have at least been delayed, if it had taken

place at all.

The war in Yugoslavia is a unit-level variable. But the interesting question is if the breakout

of the war was causally connected to the very systemic ‘fact’ of the Cold War ending.

Essentially, was it primed to happen as a natural effect of the end of the Cold War, where old

ethnic conflicts resurfaced, or can we identify an ‘X factor’ that is not a system-level variable

which explains the breakout of war?

It is beyond the possibility and scope of this thesis to give a full account of the 1991 war of

Croatian independence from Yugoslavia. However, the UN International Criminal Tribunal

for the former Yugoslavia has done a part of the work placing blame of the war. Then

president of Serbia and Yugoslavia (1989-1997), Slobodan Milošević was indicted for among

other things from a long list, genocide, and willfully and purposely conducting a campaign of

terror.123 All in all, the tribunal has indicted more than one hundred people. Indictment is not

the same as guilt, but without Milošević and several other high-ranking key figures, course of

events could have played out otherwise. However, this does little to isolate what variables

holds explanatory power – was Milošević and his cohort’s products of their environment, or

was the war a product of them?

Professor of International Relations, David Chandler, shows that the conflict can neither be

isolated to external factors or the actions of certain individuals – it was an interplay of both.124

This does not constitute strong support of a unit-level ‘X factor’ that explains why the war

broke out, and NATO’s subsequent reorientation. But neither does it support the general 122 Al Gore, quoted in Goldgeier, James M. 1998. ”NATO Expansion: The Anatomy of a Decision”, in The Washington Quarterly: 97 123 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 124 Chandler, David. 2000. ”Western Intervention and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia 1989-1999”, in E. S. Herman and P. Hammond (eds) Degraded capability: 19-30


45

assumption of the system-level having all the explanatory power. Two answer my own

question: NATO’s continued existence can indeed be traced to a intermediate unit-level

variable, but it is hard to pinpoint to what degree it holds explanatory power in itself.

4.3.2 New purpose -‐ new expansion Moving on to the question of the expansion of NATO, the evidence in this case is clearer as to

how unit-level variables pushed to include East European countries. But first, a bit has to be

said on the evolution of NATO’s cooperation with non-members leading up to the expansion.

In late 1991 the organization launched the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), the

purpose of which was to establish a “more institutionalized footing” with non-members, in the

form of a “consultative forum”. By 1992 council encompassed all former East Block

countries.125 However, the NACC was not a pre-stage to membership, but had more the

characteristic of a “talking shop”.126 In 1994 NATO launched the Partnership for Peace

programme (PfP), which aimed at (and still does) to establish bilateral relations between the

organization and each member of the program. It is essentially tailor-made to fit the non-

member country’s level of commitment and priorities to common goals shared with NATO.

Unlike NACC, parts of the program are geared towards increasing compatibility in

equipment, training and exercises between NATO and the members of the program.127 It is

not an explicit pre-stage of membership, but the participating country moves to adapt to

NATO’s military structure.

The decisions to expand NATO were put in motion sometime in between 1993 and 1994. At a

NACC summit in june 1993, then U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher said NATO

enlargement was “not now on the agenda”. Not more than half a year later, in January of

1994, a different emphasis can be noted when President Clinton said it was not a question of

“whether”, but “when”.128 What happened during these two years to shift the administrations

agenda?

125 NATO Handbook. Oktober 8, 2002. ”The North Atlantic Cooperation Council” 126 Eyal, Jonathan. 1997. ”NATO’s Enlargement: Anatomy of a Decision”, in International Affairs Vol. 73 No. 4: 699, 701 127 NATO homepage. April 12, 2011. ”The Partnership for Peace programme”. 128 Goldgeier, James M. 1998. “NATO Expansion: The Anatomy of a Decision”, in The Washington Quarterly: 87


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Goldgeier has written what is perhaps the most detailed account of the political process

leading up to the decision of enlargement, by interviewing policy makers in the Clinton

administration in 1997, from “top” to “bottom”. Although the interviewees arguably have an

agenda to portray themselves in a preferable light, either as an opposition or as promoters of

expansion, it is a balanced account weighing in both sides. Being so close in time to actual

events also benefits its credibility.

He argues that it was not ‘a’ decision to promote expansion of NATO, rather a sequence of

events pushed by several key figures in and out of the administration, or in the terminology of

Neoclassical Realism: The Foreign Policy Executive. Eyal, whom I previously cited, claimed

that the “West” regarded an expansion of NATO as “old-fashioned” before 1993. Former

National Security Council staffer, Charles Kupchan substantiates this, as he argues: “the

partnership was deliberately designed to enable member states to put off questions of formal

enlargement and of NATO’s ultimate disposition in post-Cold War Europe”.129 Two key

figures in Europe were Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, leaders of Poland and the Czech

Republic whom adamantly insisted on joining NATO, being unsatisfied with PfP, possibly for

just this reason. Both of them carried moral clout as “heroes” of the end of the Cold War. The

pressure from Walesa in influencing Clinton’s stance is also underscored by Eyals account.

He argues that Walesa was so unsatisfied with the original concept of PfP (1994) that he

threatened to reject the agreement, which would be a political embarrassment of both Clinton

and NATO as such. The result was “a shift in emphasis” in the program, from trying to put off

the question of expansion, it was presented as a structure that neither promised nor excluded a

future membership.130

The Clinton administrations political rhetoric also plays a part in the process, as Clinton

stressed the “democratic peace theory” in his election campaign.131 The proponents of

expansion needed to “frame” NATO expansion as a natural extension of Clintons foreign

policy vision. A key player in this was Clinton’s national security advisor, Anthony Lake

whom argued for expansion: “the successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of

enlargement – enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies”. Andrew 129 Goldgeier, James M. 1998. “NATO Expansion: The Anatomy of a Decision”, in The Washington Quarterly: 88 130 Eyal, Jonathan. 1997. NATO’s Enlargement: Anatomy of a Decision”, in International Affairs Vol. 73 no. 4: 702 131 The notion that democracies do not go to war with each other


47

Kydd argues that Lake did not use this rhetoric as a smoke screen of sorts, hiding his “true”

rationale. Rather he was genuinely influenced by democratic peace literature, and wanted to

foster democracy in Europe.132 Perhaps as a goal in itself, or as a way of increasing U.S.

security.

The opposition to expansion was centered on the Pentagon who favored the PfP track, as it

did not “drew new lines” in Europe. The rationale being, an expansion of NATO could

rekindle a conflict with Russia, and the former east block countries needed to first restructure

their military’s equipment, training and command structures before being able to integrate.133

The rationale for the promoters of expansion, centered on Lake and the Policy Planning Staff

(the strategic “think tank” of the U.S. Department of State) can, in part, be traced to their

willingness to offer positive incitements of continued political reform. By dangling the carrot

of possible NATO membership in front of Poland and Hungary, they argued that these

countries, neither communist nor fully western market economies, would continue to

reform.134 An auxiliary argument used was also that if NATO helped in carrying out reforms,

it would pose an example for the rest of the eastern block countries. The weight of this

argument increased as ex-communists won the 1993 election in Poland, possibly threatening

to backtrack the development towards westernized market economy and democracy.

Also quite the opposite of Pentagon’s reasoning, national security advisor Lake, influenced by

former national security advisor Zbigniew Brezizinski, believed that Russia would develop

towards a stable democracy if NATO expanded, which would remove the temptation for

Russia to reassert control of it’s former satellite states.135

But as late as January of 1994, Clinton echoed The Pentagon stance when saying: “I’m not

against expanding NATO. I just think that […] there’s not a consensus to expand NATO at

this time and we don’t want to give the impression that we’re creating another dividing line in

132 Kydd, Andrew. 2001. ”Trust Building, Trust Breaking: The dilemma of NATO Enlargement”, in International Organization Vol. 55 No. 4: 807 133 Goldgeier, James M. 1998. “NATO Expansion: The Anatomy of a Decision”, in The Washington Quarterly: 87 134 ibid: 89 135 ibid: 92


48

Europe after we’ve worked for decades to get rid of the one that existed before.”136 This was

of course not what Walesa and Havel hoped to hear.

Later that year in Prague, Clinton delivered a bold speech where he said: “While the

Partnership is not a NATO membership, neither is it a permanent holding room. It changes

the entire NATO dialogue so that now the question is no longer whether NATO will take on

new members but when and how”.137 This seems to constitute a critical juncture, as it was

Lake himself that wrote the speech, and given his opinions on expansion, it constituted a

significant realignment from previous speeches held by Clinton.

The opposition and the proponents of expansion interpreted Clinton’s words very differently.

For the Pentagon, it simply meant that “when” the PfP had created a favorable environment

for expansion, which could take years, not that the administration would actively push for

expansion. To them, the question was more or less resolved. For Lake, it meant a quiet and

implicit OK to move ahead.138

Sidestepping the issue of persons involved for a moment, another variable in the equation is

U.S. domestic politics in large. As Neorealist scholar N. M. Ripsman argues, domestic

concerns should have less sway over national security policy than other areas of policy, for

two reasons: 1) mishandling of foreign policy is associated with potentially very high costs

(i.e. war at worst) and 2) both costs and benefits of foreign policy decisions tend to be widely

distributed across society.139 But, the Foreign Policy Executive is made up of people who

need electoral support, especially in the case of the U.S. where most high-level bureaucrats

are politically appointed, and therefore dependent on the success of a political party.

Goldgeier argues convincingly that some domestic concerns did play a part, as Clinton would

have excluded “vocal and powerful domestic constituencies” if he sided against expansion.

Eyal for example points towards the polish diaspora in America.140 Goldgeier also argues that

as the U.S. led bombing campaign in Bosnia was not achieving its purpose, Clinton very

136 ibid: 93 137 ibid: 94 138 ibid: 94 139 Ripsman, N. M. 2009. “Neoclassical realism and domestic interest groups”, in Neoclassical Realism, The State, and Foreign Policy: 180 140 Eyal, Jonathan. 1997. ”NATO’s Enlargement: Anatomy of a Decision”, in International Affairs Vol. 73 No. 4: 704


49

much needed to be able to show initiative in arena of foreign policy for the upcoming

elections.141 Add to this that the Republican Party needed to be neutralized as their platform

(“Contract with America”) for the 1994 congressional elections included NATO expansion.

The timing seemed to be just ‘right’ for a push of expansion.

After Clinton’s rhetorical realignment in Prague, Lake started drafting an action plan on

enlargement, to be ready for The Presidents Warsaw visit to Lech Walesa in July. When

reminded of still lingering opposition, he replied, “The president wanted to move forward”.142

In July during his visit Clinton said to reporters that he had “always stated [his] support for

the idea that NATO will expand”, and that we now needed to get “NATO partners together

and to discuss what the next steps should be”.143 Vice President Gore echoed his senior when

he two months later said that NATO needed to find a new rationale.144 By account, senior

military representatives protested Gores speech on forehand, but to no avail.

Lakes agenda gained bureaucratic clout as his like-minded partners Alexander Vershbow and

Daniel Fried, were assigned to the National Security Council in 1994, enabling them to

effectively shape policy above the heads of (some) of the opposition. They continued to work

on their action plan, which included the timeline of expansion later followed.145

Former ambassador to the reunited Germany, Richard Holbrooke, who by now was assistant

secretary of state and shared Lakes vision, was tasked with put down the last opposition

within the administration. When the plan for expansion was questioned at an inter-agency

meting by a representative from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (advisories to among others the

President and Secretary of Defense) who still preferred the single track of the PfP, Hollbrooke

declared that it “sounds like insubordination”, and “either you are on the president’s program

or you are not”.146

An important point to stress, showing the relevance of unit-level variables in this case, is that

Clinton had actually not made a formal decision that NATO should seek to expand, even by

141 ibid: 95 142 ibid: 95 143 ibid: 97 144 ibid: 97 145 ibid: 97 146 ibid: 98


50

late 1994. It was all talk and speeches delivered during the years on the subject. But Lake,

Holbrooke and others now in the inner circle of power – above their opponents – had the

privilege of having a monopoly of interpretation. When in disagreement, they could simply

point towards their place in the administrative hierarchy. Since President Clinton neither said

clearly ‘yes’ or ‘no’, the shaping of U.S. policy on expansion was left much to their hand. If

the places were reversed and the Pentagon opposition was in the “expansionists” place, it is

very likely that the U.S. would have chosen the continuation of only the PfP rather than

expansion, effectively delaying expansion by a number of years or stopping it altogether.

At the July 1997 NATO summit in Madrid, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were

invited to talks on gaining membership, which they all achieved in 1999. The conflict of

NATO should or should not expand was thus won. Five years later the organization grew with

seven members, and in 2009 with another two. In 2010, NATO adopted a new and revised

New Strategic Concept, which under the headline “Open Door” states that “NATO’s

enlargement has contributed substantially to the security of Allies; the prospect of further

enlargement and the spirit of cooperative security have advanced stability in Europe more

broadly”.147 The rest is, as they say history.

Chapter 5 – Conclusions and final thoughts

5.1 Conclusions in summary

I will conclude the empirical part of this essay with a brief summary, by scaling back on the

details, to give the reader an overview of my findings presented in chapter 4:



Yes. The behavior of both the U.S. and Europe’s Great Powers goes squarely against what

Mearsheimers theory would suggest: Europe’s Great Powers would either buck-pass or form a

new external balancing coalition. And the U.S. should have either returned to being an

147 NATO’s New Strategic Concept. November 19, 2010


51

offshore balancer, or forcefully moved to gain power at the expense of European Great

Powers. Neither has happened.

2. Counterfactually test if an anomaly unexplained by Mearsheimers Offensive Realism

did not have negative consequences in the given case.

The U.S. current security concerns cannot be causally linked to either NATO per se, or it’s

membership in the organization. Al-Qaeda, North Korea and other perceived threats do not

conspire against the U.S. due to NATO. Neither has U.S. engagements within NATO left the

country worse off than it, counterfactually, would have been if it was not a member.




It is hard to isolate if any unit-level variables possessed explanatory power when it comes to

NATO’s continued existence. Unit-level variables were at play, but I cannot prove if,

counterfactually, other unit-level variables (i.e. different leaders in Yugoslavia) would have

influenced the sequence of events in another direction. But, not only were there unit-level and

domestic variables at play when NATO found a new rationale and moved to expand, evidence

also points towards the ‘very’ much so unit-level variable of people being in the ‘right’

position at the right time drastically influenced the decision to expand the organization.

5.2 What then of Europe?

The observant reader might ask, why not also look at the political process in NATO’s

European members as to why they agreed upon and promoted NATO’s continued existence

and expansion? This is a relevant question, since the vast majority of NATO members are

European states. However, the U.S. is without a par the most powerful member of the

organization with its power projection capabilities, extensive nuclear arsenal, and network of

bases across Europe. By this, the opinion of the U.S. should weigh heavily within the

organization. As Lepgold shows, a security good is like ‘any other’ in the sense that it is

public, private or somewhere in between. A purely public good is non-rivalrous (ones

consumption does not lessen the amount available to others) and non-excludable (no one can


52

be kept from consuming it). Non-excludability makes in theory the provider of the good –

security – prone to undersupplying it. In the case of NATO, membership is the mechanism of

exclusion.148 Since NATO’s collective security is to a very large degree supplied by the U.S.,

they would theoretically have strongest reason to not want to expand the alliance. For this

reason, and with the limited scope of this thesis in mind, I chose to focus on what shifted

opinions on expansion within the U.S. administration.

In my attempts to uncover the process from a U.S. perspective, I have found a number of

indices pointing towards unit-level variables at play when Europe’s Great Powers decided to

back expansion. For example French president Jacques Chirac had an interest in wagging the

dog by his own offensive stance on expansion (in the case of Romania, not covered in my

study), as a means of showing that after just being integrated back into NATO’s military

command, France was still able to influence European security.149 Sources points towards

unit-level variables at play in Germany as well.

5.3 Offensive Realism might be right, if Mearsheimer is wrong

In answer to my first research question, I wrote that Offensive Realism failed in explaining

NATO’s continued existence and expansion. It is an anomaly. NATO’s existence has not

furthered U.S. power in the military sense. Returning to this point as an end to my thesis, The

Tragedy of Great Power Politics rests on a number of assumptions, if wrong, would turn

Mearsheimers interpretation on its head. Namely, Mearsheimer argues 1) the U.S. is not a

global hegemon 2) the U.S. is an off shore balancer, only intervening when a potential

hegemon emerges, and 3) the U.S. does not become military involved in Europe to maintain

peace and stability.150

The logic of Offensive Realism interpreted stringently dictates that regional hegemons cannot

be status quo powers; they should strive for global hegemony. As already known,

Mearsheimer argues that water stops these ambitions, and therefore Great Power politics is

“tragic” since no nation can solve the security dilemma. But he also argues that the best way

148 Lepgold, Joseph. 1998. ”NATO’s post-Cold War Collective Action Problem”, in International Security Vol. 23 No. 1: 87 149 Eyal, Jonathan. 1997. NATO’s Enlargement: Anatomy of a Decision”, in International Affairs Vol. 73 no. 4: 708 150 Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: 170


53

to ensure security is to seek (as much) hegemony as possible when available, effectively to

nip distant potential rival hegemons in the bud.151 There is ambivalence here: if water does

stops global hegemony, why bother with destroying distant rivals? As Layne argues, in a

“Mearsheimerian” world, strategists would probably not bet on “the stopping power of

water”.152 Consequently, he argues, the logic of the theory would suggest that regional

hegemons strive for global hegemony, since it is the only way of solving the fundamental

security dilemma of living in an anarchical world. And as such, they should try to destroy or

subjugate rivals.

In itself this line of reasoning does not puncture Mearsheimers balloon, but Layne provides

convincing proof that the U.S. is a global hegemon, and isn’t an off shore balancer. He points

to several key statements and official documents revealing that the U.S. Foreign Policy

Executive in large acts according to a perceived role as a global hegemon and not an offshore

balancer. For example, the George Bush I administrations draft on Defense Planning

Guidence (DFG), which states: “we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential

competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”.153 The strategy is not only

aimed at Russia and China, but Western Europe, where it says: “We must account sufficiently

for the interests of the large industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our

leadership or seeking to overturn the established political or economic order”.154 This kind of

reasoning is very consistent across administrations, and is echoed almost to a word in

Clintons 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review for post-2015 objectives and the George W. Bush

II administrations 2002 National Security Strategy.155

What Layne essentially shows is that U.S. foreign policy in large seems to be guided by the

notion that the world is unipolar (as in one global hegemon), and that multiple military

powers (as in multipolarity) would lead to a “renationalization” of competing Great Powers as

the world was before 1945. The U.S. wants Europe to be dependent on their security to

151 Layne, Christopher. 2002. ”The Poser Child for Offensive Realism: America as a Global Hegemon”, in Security Studies 12, no. 2: 130 152 ibid: 130 153 DFG 1994-1999, quoted in Layne, Christopher. 2002. ”The Poser Child for Offensive Realism: America as a Global Hegemon”, in Security Studies 12, no. 2: 135 154 Layne, Christopher. 2002. ”The Poser Child for Offensive Realism: America as a Global Hegemon”, in Security Studies 12, no. 2: 135 155 ibid: 137


54

prevent this.156 This touches upon my research questions. If Layne is right, then his account

provides compelling evidence as to why NATO’s existence and expansion post-Cold War in

fact is in line with what could be called a more stringent interpretation of Offensive Realism:

To maintain unipolarity. Since security is primus motor of states, i.e. for the U.S. to maintain

its position as top dog, it could also provide insights as to why the U.S. did not withdraw to an

offshore balancing role in Europe while being occupied with two wars in the Middle East.

If we accept Layne’s line of reasoning, it raises the question of “how much of Offensive

Realism is really left?” The Tragedy of Great Power Politics in its entirety is dedicated to a

theory of foreign affairs that assume and theorize of state behavior in a world where anarchy

and power struggles are ever-persistent facts of life. The tragedy in The Tragedy is that no one

state is assumed to be able to become global hegemon and permanently solve the security

dilemma. But if the U.S. has reached global hegemon status, do we really need Offensive

Realism any more?

156 Layne, Christopher. 2002. ”The Poser Child for Offensive Realism: America as a Global Hegemon”, in Security Studies 12, no. 2: 137


55

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Education

Oscar sundevall testing offensive realism on nato expansion i europe (masters thesis)