OPINION: The utility of international theory

Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 July 2024, 16:48 by Writer

By Dr. Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus

In practical politics as in everyday life, theory is a bad word. You know the refrain – “that’s just theoretical” – meaning that there is little useful wisdom in what is being said or written. Academics in foreign affairs face quite an uphill task because of this bias against theoretical analysis. If fact, no less than Owen Harries, the founding editor of The National Interest, and himself a highly trained foreign policy specialist, once argued that intellectuals suffer from “… a surprising degree of uncritical acceptance of erroneous views concerning the way things are and, in particular, the way things are going” (Harries, 2005).

Harries went after some pretty big names in the field of international relations (IR), including Sir Norman Angell, A.J.P. Taylor, Paul Kennedy, and for good measure, the Club of Rome. His main argument was that intellectuals tend to base their generalizations of three things, namely, the current state of world affairs, the tendency to please the extant power bloc, and the obedience to ideology. While there are good grounds to partially support these claims, Harries has got it wrong. In fact, there is considerable evidence that international theorists tend to get it more right than wrong. Further, I argue that without IR theory, those with the biggest loudspeakers will always win, and this, at the expense of what is analytically sound and politically useful. Allow me to elaborate.

I being here with a quasi-personal note going back to the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. I was at the time teaching international relations at the largest school of international affairs in the world – The School of International Service, American University, Washington DC. I gave the same lectures to all three classes (at the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. levels) on the terrorist attacks, international politics, and world order.

The lectures were grounded in a simple theoretical argument. This was that, while terrorism is nasty, violent, disruptive, and had killed more than 3,000 Americans, (and many more in other places before that) in the long run where US national security is concerned, it would become secondary to challenges emanating from other great powers. This was not an easy thing to say to students, some of whom had lost family members, friends, or acquaintances in the Al-Qaeda terror attack. You have to remember also that at that time, patriotism had reached a new historical zenith, and theory was the last thing anyone wanted to hear.

Now, here is the crucial point. What I said to those classes were not my original ideas. Anyone familiar with IR theory would immediately recognize that those arguments rest on classical balance of power theory, and its later iterations articulated in structural neorealism. Balance of power theory basically argues that states (not non-state actors) are security seeking, and that rational states pursue policies aimed at either achieving dominance on their own, or joining up with other states in order to (a) achieve reliable protection, or (b) prevent another state from achieving ‘dominance’ in the international system. Balance of power theory is a form of systems theory. Unit attributes are important in determining national power, but it is the way power is organized at the level of the international system that matters.

Structural neorealism, a theory most systematically developed by Kenneth Waltz focuses on the distribution of capabilities in the system. The system can be unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar.

One of the most important things about any theory is that it must have predictive power. This, realism and structuralism neorealism do have predictive power. Realism and neorealism predicted that if other great powers believe that the US is heading towards hegemony, those states will ‘gang up’ against the US. This is exactly not only what Russia and China are doing, but also why they are colluding against the US. You might not like to hear this, but it is not about Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. It has nothing to do with the persons who are the heads of Russia and China. Rather, the answer is to be found in the consolidation of American power globally, and the predictable (from IR theory) responses from other great powers.

In the event you are not aware of it, you should know that American strategy is essentially to block China from becoming a regional hegemon. There is another theory called off-shore balancing associated with realism and neorealism. The theory advocates using a regional power (or two) to prevent a great power in a ‘far-away’ part of the world from becoming a regional hegemon. The new trilateral defense pact among the US, Japan and South Korea is aimed at preventing Chinese regional hegemony. Note that this goes beyond issues such as the dispute over the Spratly Islands, Taiwan’s security, the fishing rights of the Philippines, or the littoral claims of Vietnam. Consistent with the theory of offshore balancing, US policy is aimed at disrupting China’s predictable designs in Asia.

While space does not permit, you may be interested to know that many Brazilian intellectuals have harbored the idea of forming a counter-weight to the US in the Americas. SAFTA was partly conceived along these lines. US regional power, however, is too preponderant for an effective challenge. Under these circumstances, the best policy is to cooperate.

Finally, it is important to understand that a good deal of foreign policy and national security strategy in the great powers, are built around the theoretical work of international relations scholars. Harries, I am afraid, was himself too ideological. The utility of IR theory is significant and should be more widely read.

Dr. Randy Persaud is Adviser (International Affairs), Office of the President.