Security, War and Arms Control

 Assist. Prof. Saffet Akkaya

 Course hours:
 [email protected]
Main Source for the Course
(Pages 160-198)
Introduction to International Relations
 Syllabus
 1st : Introduction to International Relations
 2nd: Classical Realism/Neo-realism
 3rd : Liberalism/Neo-Liberalism
 4th: Marxism, Critical Theories
 5th: Feminism and Green Theory
 6th: The Modern Nation-State and International Relations
 7th: Mid-term Exam
 8th: Security, War and Arms Control
 9th: Diplomacy and Great Powers
 10th: Cold War and New World Order
 11th: Non-state Actors and Their Effects on IR
 12th: Globalization and Critics
 13th: Global Terrorism’s Effects on IR
 14th: Final Exam
 Defining security
 Defining security is a highly political matter.
 The classical (realist) definition, argues that a nation’s security is determined by its
ability to defend itself against threats.
 Hans Morgenthau defined national security as ‘the integrity of the national territory and
its institutions.
 Liberal understanding of ‘international’ security argues that statesmen must try to see
problems from the point of view of other nations and diplomacy and must seek to make
all nations equally secure.
 This contrasts with the views of some realists that security is a zero-sum game, that a
nation is secure to the extent that others are not.
 Barry Buzan and his colleagues in the ‘Copenhagen School’ offer a revealing ‘extended
realist’ definition when they say that security is about survival.
 Security
 Critical writers, on the other hand, define security very differently.
 They argue that security should be holistic and not focused primarily on the state or
military conflict.
 Ken Booth argues that security should be about the emancipation of individuals and
groups from those physical and human constraints which stop them from carrying out
what they would freely choose to do.
 The feminist scholar J. Ann Tickner defines security as ‘the elimination of unjust social
relations, including unequal gender relations’ .
 Other critical scholars argue that just the use of the term ‘security’ grants governments
enormous
 power. Security is a form of power, a ‘political technology’ that operates on individuals
and populations at the same time.
 It thus must be ‘deconstructed’ and placed under suspicion.
 Realist approaches
 As we saw with Hans Morgenthau’s definition above, the realist paradigm focuses upon
national security.
 Realist approaches privilege the state as the object of security and see threats primarily
emerging from the military and economic competition between states.
 They emphasise what they call the ‘self-help’ capacities of states in developing strong
military forces and strategic alliances with other states.
 They are sceptical of the value of international law or ‘collective security’, although they
do occasionally endorse the creation of coalitions of powers (such in the Gulf War of
1990–91) to punish or discipline a state that has acted in ways detrimental to their
national interests or security.
 They regard war as a perennial tendency in human nature and argue that it cannot be
abolished or controlled through law or moral suasion.
 Instead, they believe that the fear of unacceptable punishment (the core idea of
‘deterrence’), or prudence in the face of unacceptable costs or a chaotic result, will
restrain statesmen from acting aggressively.
 Realist approaches
 On the use of force, realists have divided into two groups.
 A more hawkish group, associated with strategic studies endorses violence as
a tool of statecraft and is more concerned with technical issues of weapons
systems, military preparedness, and military tactics and strategy.
 A second group argues that the use of force should always be a last resort and
often has chaotic and costly effects that can’t be anticipated.
 The actions of Robert McNamara and his colleagues during the Cuban missile
crisis sit within this camp, and the opposition of Stephen Walt and John
Mearsheimer to the invasion of Iraq is another example.
 Liberal approaches
 Liberals argue that it is inadequate for security to be based on the power balancing and
deterrence calculations of individual states, believing that the two world wars and the dangers
of nuclear holocaust require the development of international rules and cooperative
institutions.
 This attitude has influenced the development of an important body of international law and a
number of global and regional institutions relating to security.
 The most important of these are the UN and its Charter, which outlaws armed aggression and
will only authorise the use of force in defence against attack with the concurrence of the
fifteen-member Security Council.
 Key treaties, which have moral force of international law, include Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive (Nuclear)
Test Ban Treaty, and the Ottawa Convention banning land mines.
 Not only does the UN seek to control when states go to war (jus ad bellum), it also seeks to
control how states may conduct wars (jus in bello) through the Geneva Conventions
regulating war. These operate against the background of a long list of other conventions
protecting fundamental freedoms and human rights.
 Liberal approaches
 Liberals thus define their thinking and policy around three key concepts:
 a)Collective security generally refers to efforts to build rules and laws at the
international level, to create regional or global decision-making bodies and institutions,
and to act in concert to enforce those rules.
 This is the paradigm at work when the UN Security Council deliberates or authorises
military interventions, for example.
 In theory its decisions are meant to express a collective – even universal – consensus,
but they can sometimes express the influence of more powerful states.
 b)International security must rest on a commitment to joint survival rather than on a
threat of mutual destruction’ .
 c)Cooperative security is an idea promoted by former Australian foreign minister Gareth
Evans in the context of the formation of the ARF, one that he claimed could fold
collective, common and comprehensive security into a conceptual whole.
 Constructivist Approaches
 Constructivist approaches to security develop and refine both liberal and realist analyses,
although they tend to support liberal approaches in normative terms.
 They seek to understand the way ideas and norms affect international security and
combine with national interests or military competition.
 As known, constructivism is based on the fundamental view that ideational structures
mediate how actors perceive, construct, and reproduce the institutional and material
structures they inhabit as well as their own roles and identities within them’.
 Constructivists especially emphasise the way in which norms have the effect of
controlling international politics.
 Particular actions are then shaped or limited either voluntarily because an actor has
internationalised a norm into their own identity or basic convictions, or because an actor
feels pressure from other parts of their own or the international community.
 Constructivist approaches
 A significant contribution of constructivist writers to security analysis is their
development of Karl Deutsch’s concept of the security community.
 Security communities emerge where there is ‘a development of shared understandings,
transnational values and transaction flows such as trade.
 The features of security community exist in East Asia (especially among the ASEAN
countries) who have agreed norms that prevent them settling inter-state disputes by
force, that limit the role of great powers and prevent the acquisition of weapons of mass
destruction.
 While some critical writers acknowledge the value of this, they have also questioned
how ASEAN combines liberal values at the inter-state level with very coercive and
authoritarian norms inside their countries.
 Others have questioned the way security communities can shift the antagonism to those
outside the security community, potentially creating ‘regional fortresses preparing for
the kind of civilisational conflict.
 The Causes of War
 This chapter examines the causes war or armed conflict, between sovereign states.
 Throughout the history, was has sometimes observed as a positive behaviour. Empires
have broaden their reign and efficiency by conquering land and declaring war.
 But especially through the experience of World War I, war has been decalred as a
negative step.
 This negative approach to war was also a key factor in the formation of International
Relations (IR) as an academic discipline.
 Contrary to a general impression, war is relatively uncommon. Most states live in peace,
or are not at war. Still, when a war comes, its impact is massive in practically all cases.
 The causes of war can be grouped under three headlines;
 Necessary causes of war
 Regular causal paths to war
 Contributory causes of war
 Necessary causes of war
 No search for the necessary causes of war has been conducted so far, thus we can not
produce very good explanations for the necessary causes of war.
 The necessary cause of war must have such a power that in its absence, war does not
happen. And we must have a good reason to believe that war could not happen in its
absence.
 IR specialists now broadly agree that there has not been any clear case of war between
liberal democratic states.
 What the researchers have established, is the fact that there has not been any clear case
of war between well-established democracies so far.
 The absence of democracy between the neighboring countries may be evaluated as a
necessary cause of war.
 On the other hand, it is fairly common to suppose that war begins because both parties
consider they have a good chance of winning.
 Regular causal paths to war
 War comes about in many ways and this comprises a number of steps.
 The presence of a dispute between two states roughly equal in power increases
the probability of war between them, especially if it is a territorial dispute.
 A territorial dispute tends to breed other territorial disputes and a crisis more
crises.
 Responding to the deteriorating conditions by alliance formation further
increases the probability of war.
 Arms races also increase the probability of war, as does a history of rivalry.
 Contributory causes of war
 Many factors contribute to war; they are either ‘things that happen’ or ‘things
that are done’.
 ‘Things that happen’ may occur by chance or follow automatically as the
conditions are ripe and nothing is stopping them.
 When we add ‘things that are done’ to these two, we have a set of three types
of contributory cause regarding war:
 Chance occurrences directing the sequence of events towards war;
 War-conducive mechanisms;
 Actions and inactions of certain key actors contributing to the coming of a war
 What is arms control?
 Arms control can be described simply as any arrangement made directly between
adversaries or multilaterally by the broader international community to limit the
weapons that might be used in warfare.
 Arms control can be conducted as a formal process involving treaties and other binding
arrangements, or as an informal practice between states.
 These processes or steps can be unilateral, bilateral or multilateral; the most essential
element is a willingness to cooperate with other states to achieve security interests.
 These interests could be ‘exclusively those of the cooperating states themselves’ or
interests that are ‘more widely shared’ in the international community.
 What is arms control?
 Arms control has been applied to both weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and to
conventional weapons, although it has been applied most heavily to WMDs.
 These are nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons, and are categorised as
WMDs because of their enormous potential for causing mass casualties.
 Despite the heavy focus on this kind of weapon, there is no reason to limit arms control
to WMDs only.
 While WMDs are rightly abhorred for their capacity for destruction, so-called
conventional weapons – that is, weapons that are not WMD – have received much less
attention from arms controllers, largely because of the implied right of sovereign states
to possess a normal or ‘conventional’ weapons capability.
 This is changing, however, and although the focus for arms control continues to be on
WMDs, certain kinds of conventional weapons are also now being considered as
appropriate for restriction or elimination.
 Why do states engage in arms
control practices?
 There are various compelling reasons why states might wish to conduct arms control
arrangements.
 First, mutually agreeing to limit the kinds or numbers of weapons states may hold can
help to prevent the outbreak of war between them. In this sense, arms control can be
seen as a means of lessening the negative effects of the ‘security dilemma’.
 Second, states need to achieve ‘confidence building measure’. Arms control can thus
reduce greatly the military and economic costs of preparing for war; knowing that an
adversary will not acquire a type or particular numbers of weapons.
 Third, there is also a very compelling humanitarian reason for engaging in arms control:
limiting the type and numbers of weapons. If war does break out, deaths and casualties
will likely be limited because of restricting weapons held by all warring parties.
 It is interesting that this humanitarian consideration is now the most prominent driver of
contemporary arms control and disarmament efforts.
 Cold War Arms Control
 Arms control was a real issue during the Cold War, when the world faced the
real possibility of war – especially nuclear war –between the US and USSR
and their respective allies.
 The US had exploded the world’s first atomic bombs over Japan in 1945; the
USSR acquired its nuclear capability in 1949 and an upward spiral of nuclear
arms acquisition quickly followed.
 Because of the hugely destructive nature of nuclear weapons, the US and
USSR determined that various agreements must be reached if these states were
to prevent a catastrophic war threatening the humankind.
 The concept of ‘mutually assured destruction’ was unacceptable to those who
advocated an urgent reduction in weapons and therefore the likelihood of war.
 Cold War Arms Control
 Notable agreements of Cold War Arms Control;
 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), SALT agreements (Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks) of 1972 and 1979, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, Intermediate Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 and the START agreements (Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaties between the US and Soviet Union/Russia), begun in 1991.
 The earlier treaties did little except to start a balance of terror between the superpowers,
rather than bring about any meaningful reductions in the numbers of nuclear weapons.
 It was only towards the end of the Cold War, and especially with the emphasis put on
arms control by the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, that substantial reductions
began to occur, under the START process.
Why is arms control still important in
the post-Cold War period?
 The ending of the Cold War did not lessen the need for arms control, despite
the thaw in relations between the US and Russia.
 There was a need to continue to limit certain kinds of weapons.
 The need to continue with arms control is not surprising when we consider
that although the superpowers have made dramatic reductions in their nuclear
arsenals, there still remain over 22 000 nuclear weapons in the world today.
 The vast majority of these weapons are held by the US and Russia.
 New initiatives in arms control:
small arms and conventional
weapons
 As noted before arms control need not be limited to weapons of mass destruction only,
although it is indeed WMDs which have received greatest attention from the
international community.
 One important development in the area of arms control study is that conventional
weapons are also now becoming objects of keen attention.
 It is important that conventional weapons should not be seen as ‘normal’ and interpreted
that the sovereign right of nation-states approves to possess (and indeed to manufacture
and export) arsenals of various (non-WMD) weapons.
 We have also noted, however, that two very important agreements – the 1997 Ottawa
Landmines Convention and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions – banned widely
used conventional weapons.
 Since 1995 we have seen increasing concern about the spread and devastating impact of
what are called small arms and light weapons (SALW), which are commonly possessed
by all states.
Homework for Students
 Detailly read and understand this weeks lesson, on
Security, War, Arms Control.
 Prepare a summary with your sentences that may be
helpful for Final Exam.
 Be sure that security, war, and arms control is a main
topic of International Relations.
 For Tables and more information refer to the Main
Source for the Course
(Pages 160-198).