Great Powers, Polarity, and Existential Threats to Humanity: An Analysis of the Distribution of the Forces of Total Destruction in International Security (original) (raw)

International Politics in the Age of Existential Threats

Journal of Global Security Studies, 2020

Humans in the twenty-first century live under the specter of anthropogenic existential threats to human civilization and survival. What is the significance of humanity's capacity for self-destruction to the meaning of "security" and "survival" in international politics? The argument is that it constitutes a material "revolution" in international politics-that is, the growing spectrum of anthropogenic ex-istential threats represents a radical transformation in the material context of international politics that turns established truths about security and survival on their heads. The paper develops a theoretical framework based in historical security materialism, especially the theoretical proposition that the material circumstances of the "forces of destruction" determine the security viability of different "modes of protection" , political "units" and "structures" , and "security ideologies" in international politics. The argument seeks to demonstrate the growing disjuncture (or "contradiction") between the material context of anthropogenic existential threats ("forces of destruction"); and the security practices of war, the use of military force, and the balance-of-power ("modes of protection"); the political units of nation-states and structure of international anarchy ("political superstructure"); and the primacy of "national security" and doctrines of "self-help" and "power politics" in international politics ("security ideologies"). Specifically, humanity's survival interdependence with respect to an-thropogenic existential threats calls into question the centrality of national security and survival in international politics. In an age of existential threats, "security" is better understood as about the survival of humanity.

MILITARY POWER DOES NOT DENOTE CAPACITY: The Contest for World Domination

World Affairs , 2021

The following study analyzes the exercise of power by both the United States and China in their confrontation for hegemonic dominance. Through observational and qualitative methods, an examination of the mechanisms underlying China's strategic statecraft and how it implements its exercise of power reveals its genesis and how it contested and controlled the order in Southeast Asia. Navigating through economic indicators, the research determines that the decline of American power is a myth, but it establishes a decline in its influence and prestige arising from its strategic and tactical choices. The study identified multiple systemic contingencies and political irrationalities for the non-realization of systemic unipolarity, resulting in a nonpolar world. It concludes that neither the incomparable military power of the United States nor the greater economic power of China has, in the contemporary world, fundamental comparative advantages for achieving systemic hegemony.

Established and Rising Great Powers: The United States, Russia, China, and India

in: Harald Müller/Carmen Wunderlich (eds), Norm Dynamics in Multilateral Arms Control. Interests, Conflicts, and Justice, Athens/London: University of Georgia Press, 163-206, 2013

Theories of international relations conventionally regard great powers as the most important actors in international politics. Research on norms, however, has placed little emphasis on their activities. Research on great powers, in turn, has for the most part neglected the role of norms and focused mainly on material aspects. Highlighting the role of the normative fabric of the international system in this volume compels us to look at the roles great powers play as norm entrepreneurs in arms control regimes. We regard the United States and Russia as established great powers. While the United States has been the dominant power since the end of World War II, the position of Russia is somewhat delicate as it was never a global hegemon but instead the primary challenger to the US-led international order. Both, however, played a pivotal role in the creation of the regimes under scrutiny here, given the assumption of nuclear parity. They should act valiantly in a) defending and enforcing the regimes and b) opposing norm change; something that the United States – as the permanent number one – is expected to do even more than Russia. China and India are rising great powers. Both were great empires in the past, but were subjected to repression and humiliation during the era of imperialism. They were comparatively weak when the current world order was established in the aftermath of World War II and remained on the periphery of world politics during the Cold War. From the 1980s (China) and 1990s (India) onwards, both started a spectacular rise. They can thus be expected to put forward alternative norms to those existing and to justify their proposals by arguing that the present order is profoundly unjust. They might also be more hostile towards those regimes that had been established before their rise began (NPT and BWC) than towards those that have been established later (e.g., CWC, SALW PoA).

Power, violence, and nuclear weapons

This article contributes to an ongoing debate about the role of the thermonuclear revolution in realist thought and the viability of nuclear disarmament. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, it develops an immanent critique of balance-of-power theories of international politics. Immanent critique is a diagnostic process. It takes a thought system on its own terms and by revealing its contradictions from within, opens up new possibilities for transformation. This critique reveals how the ontological assumptions Kenneth Waltz makes about the nature of power allowed him, in the guise of an apolitical theory, to transform the violence of nuclear weapons from a threat to humanity into a source of security, and therefore a normative good. According to the logic of this argument, thinking past the limits of this thought system will necessarily need to include questioning and otherwise disrupting the tight association between violence and power.