YEMEN WAR IS NAKED STRUGGLE FOR POWER in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi not a religious conflict. FP MATKIN sees "OFFENSIVE REALISM."

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FP

ARGUMENT Iran Is Winning the War for Dominance of the Middle East Tehran and Riyadh are engaged in a naked struggle for power in the region -- individual rights and good governance be damned. BY THANASSIS CAMBANIS ��� APRIL 14, 2015 http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/14/yemen-iran-saudi-arabia-middle-

east/

BEIRUT — The war in Yemen and the breakthrough nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States have sent the already frenzied Middle East analysis machine into meltdown mode. These developments come fast on the heels of almost too many changes to keep track of: the Iraqi government’s

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capture of the city of Tikrit, rebel gains in northern and southern Syria, and mass-casualty terrorist attacks in Tunis and Sanaa.

This drumbeat of headlines, however, should not distract us from the larger meaning of events in the Middle East. We are witnessing a struggle for regional dominance between two loose and shifting coalitions — one roughly grouped around Saudi Arabia and one around Iran. Despite the sectarian hue of the coalitions, Sunni-Shiite enmity is not the best explanation for today’s regional war. This is a naked struggle for power: Neither of these coalitions has fixed membership or a monolithic ideology, and neither has any commitment whatsoever to the bedrock issues that would promote good governance in the region.

This is, in some ways, an updated version of the vast and bloody struggle for hegemony that shook the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s. In that era, a coalition of reactionary monarchs, led by Saudi Arabia, did battle with a coalition of Arab nationalist military dictators, led by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. Just like in that past era, every single major player today is opposed to genuine reform and popular sovereignty.

Today’s ascendant regimes are all reactionary survivors — and sworn enemies — of the Arab Spring. The Iranians mercilessly crushed the Green Revolution in 2009, and have invested heavily in authoritarian partners in Iraq and Syria, paramilitary group such as Hezbollah, and non-democratic movements in Bahrain and Yemen. Iran’s leaders are theocrats, but they are savvy and pragmatic geopolitical worker bees: They have

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backed Sunni Islamists and Christians, while even some of their close Shiite partners — like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite, and the Zaidi Houthis in Yemen — belong to heterodox sects and don’t share their views on religious rule.

On the other side of the struggle are the Arab monarchs from the Gulf, run by the same families that brought us the Yemeni war of the 1960s. They have extended their writ through generous payoffs and occasional violence, like the Saudi-led invasion of Bahrain in 2011, which saved the minority Sunni royal family from being overrun by the island kingdom’s disenfranchised Shiite majority.

This Saudi-led alliance is Sunni-flavored, but it would be incorrect to see it as monolithically sectarian. This Saudi-led alliance is Sunni-flavored, but it would be incorrect to see it as monolithically sectarian. Not long ago, in fact, Saudi Arabia underwrote the same Zaydis it is now bombing in Yemen. The current coalition relies for populist credibility on Egypt, whose governing class is dominated by secular, anti-Islamist military officers. It enjoys dalliances in various conflict theaters like Syria and the Palestinian territories with Muslim Brothers and jihadis. It has drawn extensively on help from the United States — and on occasion from its supposedly sworn enemy, Israel.

Perhaps the best glimpse of the Saudi-led alliance’s goals came when Kuwaiti emir Sabah al-Sabah addressed the Arab League at the end of March, in the meeting that inaugurated the war in Yemen.

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“A four-year phase of chaos and instability, which some called the Arab Spring, shook our region’s security and eroded our stability,” the emir thundered. The uprisings, he said, encouraged “delusional thinking” about reshaping the region — perhaps a reference to Iran’s ambitions of regional influence, perhaps a reference to the ambitions of Arab reformers to limit the influence of the repressive states propped up by the Gulf monarchies. To the emir, the only outcome of uprisings was “a sharp setback in growth and noticeable delay in our progress and development.”

This is the crux of the regional fight underway: the old order, or a new one that would transform the balance of power — while changing little else about the way the Middle East is governed. The Saudi bloc wants to turn back the clock to the status quo ante that existed before the uprisings. The Iranian bloc wants to permanently alter the region’s balance of power. Both factions are run by opaque, secretive, repressive, and violent leaders. Neither side is interested in popular accountability, better governance, or the rights of citizens.

For all the doubts about Saudi Arabia’s capacity to craft and execute complex policy, the kingdom has cobbled together a formidable coalition. It quickly signed up most of its clients and partners for the air campaign, including Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Sudan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The United States supported the war, despite its reservations. Of the kingdom’s close allies, only Pakistan has so far resisted pressure to join the fight.

In just the last year, we’ve seen at least two major volte-face. Riyadh helped engineer a regime change in Egypt, ushering

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President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power. After experimenting with quasi-democracy and a Muslim Brotherhood presidency that defied the powerful Gulf monarchies, Cairo is now governed by a military dictator who walks firmly in lockstep with Riyadh — even promising to dispatch ground troops to a war in Yemen of which he would have probably preferred to steer clear. Qatar, the unbelievably rich emirate that has long cultivated an independent foreign policy, also found itself strong-armed by Saudi Arabia and finally caved. Its emir abdicated in favor of his son, a 34-year-old political novice, and today Doha is reading from Saudi Arabia’s song sheet.

Both examples show that this is not a monolithic bloc bound by uniform ideas of authoritarian rule or Sunni supremacy. Instead, it is a messy realpolitik coalition hammered together by shared interests — and at times by bribes and blackmail. Its members don’t agree on everything: Saudi Arabia hates Russia, in part because Moscow backs Iran and Syria. Egypt loves Saudi Arabia because Riyadh keeps its economy afloat — but it also loves Russia, because it can play off military aid from Vladimir Putin against that from the United States. In public, Sisi praises the Gulf leaders — but in leaked private recordings, he dismisses them as oil bumpkins who can be bilked of their money by more dynamic Arab nations. Qatar no longer openly defies Saudi Arabia, but it still supports Muslim Brothers and jihadis in Syria to the extent it can, and in opposition to Saudi preferences.

Since Saudi Arabia’s gloves came off in Yemen, Sunnis across the region have expressed a

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kind of fatalistic relief: At last someone is doing something to confront Iranian influence. Sunnis across the region have expressed a kind of fatalistic relief: At last someone is doing something to confront Iranian influence. But Tehran has extended its influence carefully, hedging its bets by supporting multiple groups in every conflict zone and always maintaining a degree of remove — if their investments fail, it will have not lost a war in which it was a declared combatant. This blueprint has served Iran well during 30-plus years of intervention in Lebanon and Iraq, and four years of orchestrating major combat in Syria. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has entered the Yemen war directly, and therefore has no cover. It will own the civilian casualties, and inevitably — when the war has no clear and easy outcome — it will own a failure.

History is not on Riyadh’s side in this campaign. Regional wars tend not to go well for invaders; just think of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait or the last Yemen war in the 1960s. The U.S. invasion of Iraq should also offer a cautionary lesson: Many people at the time, including some Iraqis, felt that some major action was better than the status quo, that toppling Saddam Hussein would at the least get a hairy situation unstuck. They were soon disabused of that notion, as Iraq spiraled into chaos.

America should take particular care in this conflict. It has built deep alliances with Saudi Arabia, and it has been far too

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hesitant to reinvent its dysfunctional relationship with Egypt in the post-Mubarak era. It should act as a brake on Saudi Arabia’s outsized expectations in Yemen, and it should exact a price for any support it gives the war there. Any campaign in Yemen should strengthen, rather than undermine, counterterrorism efforts there, and the United States should share its military know-how in exchange for Saudi cooperation on the Iran deal.

Sure, it’s bizarre to see the U.S. military working with Iran to battle the Islamic State in Iraq, while working against Tehran in Yemen. It’s also refreshing. This isn’t a homily; it’s foreign policy. It’s encouraging to see the United States operating around the edges of a complex, multiparty conflict and finding ways to advance American interests. Its next challenge will be finding new ways to simultaneously pressure rivals like Iran and recalcitrant allies like Saudi Arabia.

But to a large extent, the United States is a sideshow: The main event is the regional struggle for influence between the Iran and Saudi blocs. One need only look at the two major events this spring — the Iran nuclear deal and the capture of Tikrit with the help of Tehran’s military advisors — to get a sense of who’s winning. America’s preferred side has bumbled impulsively from crisis to crisis, buying or strong-arming support and launching military adventures that are likely to produce inconclusive results. Iran’s side, meanwhile, has crafted tight state-to-state relations with Syria and its onetime enemy Iraq, and has deepened its influence in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen. Despite the theocratic dogma of Iran’s Shiite ayatollahs, the regime in Tehran has managed to position itself as the regional champion of pluralism and

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minorities, against a Saudi grouping whose philosophy has drifted dangerously close to the nihilism of al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Unless Saudi Arabia and its allies can learn a new, more durable style of power projection, their costly feints will only buy short-term gains. The kingdom might manage to bomb the Houthis back to their corner of Yemen, and its Syrian clients may seize some more towns and cities from Assad, but the long-term trend points in Iran’s favor.        

James Grant Matkin just now Thannassis Cambanis sees the reality that the fighting in Yemen is a proxy battle waged by Iran and Saudi Arabia to determine spheres of influence in the Middle East. The war is not monolithically sectarian. This is a power struggle not much based on religion and the sectarian divide between Sunnis in Saudi Arabia and Shias in Iran. With the lenses of “offensive realism” according John Mearsheimer, “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics” 2001 Updated 2014, leaves one pessimistic that the conflict will end soon. Mearsheimer’s realism echoed by Kissinger and Scowcroft is based on the fact war will occur because states pursue power under our “anarchic system” with no hierarchy or “night watchman” to sort out things when one state attacks another. In Great Power conflicts, justice is not an objective standard because there is no judge or arbitrator of what is fair and therefore raw force is the medium of engagement. "This is the justice of power, the right of might or of other endownments.” More is expected by larger states, or more powerful

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states, or by littoral states or by nuclear powers, or by victorious states, or by whichever party illustrates the axiom, 'To those who have it shall be given." (Zartmann 104) This realism view of war is criticized as a “defeatist philosophy,” but sadly it is played out too often to be ignored. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is another glaring example of offensive realism. Yes, "America should take particular care in this conflict" as Cambanis urges. The United States is a side-show: The main event is the regional struggle for influence between the Iran and Saudi blocs. If Cambanis predicts correctly that in the long-term Iran will win out in the Middle East power struggle then the West needs to "tone down its rhetoric" and save its powder for another day.

     The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully? In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the

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United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable. Destined to Become the Standard Realist Text By Eric Gartman on January 2, 2002 Format: Hardcover Those of us who are familiar with John Mearsheimers' illuminating and provocative work have been waiting quite a few years for him to put all his thoughts together in one coherent and all-encompassing book. The wait is finally over, and the result does not disappoint. Mearsheimer has written what is sure to be the standard text for the Realist paradigm for years to come. It is clear that he is in fact trying to place himself in the Realist cannon as the logical successor to Morgenthau and Waltz. Whereas Morgenthau could not explain why states are driven to be as aggressive as they are, and Waltz's Defensive Realism did not adequately describe the constant struggle for power among states, Mearsheimer's Offensive Realism claims to explain both. States are aggressive due to the anarchic nature of the state system, which leads them to not only seek to ensure their survival, but to also try to acquire power at every opportunity possible. Mearsheimer's lengthy volume is divided roughly into two parts. The first half is the theoretical section, in which he presents his Offensive Realist theory in detail, along with an explanation of how to measure state power (population and wealth). Also included in this part is an entire chapter called "The Primacy of Land Power," in which he not only tries to explain why land power is the most important, but also goes into the limits of sea and air power, and the limited effectiveness of blockades and strategic bombing campaigns. It is somewhat surprising that these issues have generally been overlooked by IR theorists until now. Hopefully that will no longer be the case. The second half of the book is more empirical, including the histories of all the recent Great Powers, focusing on why and how they have been aggressive in their foreign affairs. Also included are chapter on the "Offshore Balancers" (UK and US), alliance behavior, and the origins of major wars. Critics of this book are likely to be the usual assortment of Liberals, post-Modernists, Critical Theorists, and other Realists. But Mearsheimer has not only created the most coherent Realist theory yet, he has also solved some of the major contradictions within the Realist paradigm as well. It is a stunning accomplishment, and this is a book to be read by the general reader and seasoned IR Theorist alike. Indeed, Mearsheimer has written it in a style that is accessible to all, but with generous footnotes for those interested in more details. If you only read one book on International

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Relations in your life, let this be the one! It will explain more of the world around you than you would think possible.

History and Theory: Explaining War A portal to the cause(s) of the Great War

Skip to content Academic Sources In The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, author John Mearsheimer outlines a new theory of international relations which he calls “offensive realism.” Mearsheimer’s theory is a spin-off of Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism, also known as structural or defensive realism. Mearsheimer follows on the premises of Kenneth Waltz’s theory by deriving the behavior of states from the “structure” of the international system.

Mearsheimer outlines five assumptions or premises comprising his theoretical foundation: 1) the international system is anarchic (no world government) 2) all states posses some offensive capability and are thus capable of using force against other states 3) no state can be certain another state

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will not use force against it 4) survival, territorial integrity, and domestic autonomy are the primal goals of all states and 5) great powers are rational actors (Mearsheimer 2001, pp. 30-31).

It is difficult to definitively discern what conclusions Mearsheimer thinks follow from these premises (Wagner 2007, pg. 14). He argues for perhaps three conclusions: 1) great powers have powerful incentives to “think and act offensively with regard to each other…In particular, three general patterns of behavior result: fear, self-help, and power maximization (Mearsheimer 2001, pg.32)” 2) even states that want only to survive end up pursuing hegemony as the ultimate insurance for survival 3) even states that care only about their survival may end up in war. These conclusions constitute what Mearsheimer calls the tragedy of international politics (Mearsheimer 2001, pp. 1-3).

This tragedy is embodied in what Mearsheimer describes as the “security dilemma.” The security dilemma stipulates that “the measures a state takes to increase its own security usually decreases the security of other states. Thus, it is difficult for a state to increase its own chances of survival without threatening the survival of other states” (Mearsheimer 2001, pg. 36). Of course the security dilemma cannot operate unless we also include the premise that no state can be insured that another state will not attack it (Wagner 2007, pg 26).

In chapter eight Mearsheimer offers an explanation of the causes of war, or so he claims. In reality, he simply outlines three plausible structures of the international system and the relative probability of war under each structure.

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From his analysis of the structure of the international system and state’s interests, Mearsheimer concludes that states strive for at least regional hegemony and the prevention of the rise of another regional hegemon. Mearsheimer argues that this is precisely the strategy of the United States and that it can best achieve its goals through what he calls “buck passing” and “off shore balancing.” Mearsheimer argues that the balance of power in Europe is currently stable and that the US need not employ an active foreign policy there. In fact, he argues the US should bring its troops home from Europe as European security provision is not vital to American interests. Mearsheimer similarly argues that security provision in Northeast Asia is not a vital American interest. In contrast to Europe, however, he argues that China has the latent power potential to become a regional hegemon in Northeast Asia and thus the US should employ an active foreign policy of offshore balancing in relation to China.

Critiquing Mearsheimer:

Mearsheimer’s theory is an example of deduction. In order for a deductive theory to be logically valid, the conclusion(s) must follow from the premises. Mearsheimer, as all realists do, fails on this account. A fully developed critique of Mearsheimer, and the lack of validity within his argument, is outside the scope of this assignment. Therefore, my critique of his logic will focus primarily on anarchy.

I will outline three general critiques of Mearsheimer’s argument which I believe are most important for better understating international politics, particularly US-China relations. First is the anarchic logic of structural realism. In creating this logic, realists draw on Hobbes’ theorizing about

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the state of nature for individuals. Mearsheimer and Waltz adopt Hobbes’ theory to the anarchic structure of the international system. In order to complete this step in their theorizing, both Waltz and Mearsheimer argue that that neither the domestic politics nor the leaders of states matter, thereby treating states as individuals with one monolithic goal—survival.

This is a fatal flaw in realism and in Mearsheimer’s theory. Neither Mearsheimer nor any other realist makes any attempt to explain why or how they can leap from Hobbes’ state of nature for individuals to a Hobbesian state of nature in the international system. They just assert that it is the case. It is not possible to understand the behavior of states in the international system without accounting for the domestic structure of the state. I will give two examples to illustrate my argument.

American grand strategy during the Cold War was built around George Kennan’s premise about the domestic origins of Soviet foreign policy. He argued that the domestic politics of regime survival drove Soviet foreign policy, not survival against other states in the international system. Kennan argued that the Soviet state had to create the fear of external threats to sustain its domestic survival.

In the run up to WWI, Germany faced domestic constraints on its ability to sustain arms races first with Britain and then more importantly with Russia. Germany also faced domestic political and self inflicted socio-cultural constraints on its ability to expand the ranks of its army. Russia, on the other hand, did not face the same domestic constraints on military expansion as it was authoritarian and could thus conscript large numbers of soldiers. Nor did Russia have any problem

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with conscripting large numbers of peasants into the ranks of its army. Moreover, French capital injections into the Russian state for the purpose of building an army and railroads to transport it meant Russia faced fewer financial constraints than Germany. Fearing a relatively more powerful Russia at the end of Russia’s second great program, to be completed in 1917, Germany fought a preventive war against Russia in 1914[1].

A second critique of Mearsheimer is his attempt in chapter eight to explain the causes of war. International relations, and thus international relations theory, is fundamentally about explaining “the relation between organized violence and political order at the international level” (Wagner 2007, pg. ix). Thus it is noteworthy that Mearsheimer attempts this feat, especially given that Waltz, as he keenly notes, never really attempted it. However, Mearsheimer decisively fails in his attempt. What he ultimately offers is the relative probability of war under different structures of the international system (bipolarity, balanced and unbalanced multipolarity). This is not an explanation of how war occurs. In order to understand how war occurs, it is important to first note that war is costly. Given that war is costly, and states are rational actors, we must think about and explain why states would fight. Is it just because of anarchy, or the “polarity” of the system, or because of the security dilemma? I think not. I think the answer lies in the bargaining theory of war. While this is a discussion that lies outside the purview of this paper, it does bring me to my third crucial critique of Mearsheimer’s theory.

Mearsheimer argues that states cannot provide each other with guarantees that they do not harbor hostile intentions. However, as with the assumption that domestic politics are irrelevant, he simply asserts that this is fact. Thus the

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question still remains, as Harrison Wagner skillfully points out, whether democracy or trade or some other mechanism could lead states not to fight (Wagner 2007 pg. 23). After all, we know that European political evolution trended toward the adoption of democratic institutions as a means to manage conflict among not only individuals but also predatory states. https://internationalhistoryandwwi.wordpress.com/academic-­‐sources/mearsheimer-­‐the-­‐tragedy-­‐of-­‐great-­‐power-­‐politics/      

   The  Koreas,  Bastion  of  Cold  War  Realism  A  reluctant  but  pragmatic  defense  of  neorealism  in  Northeast  Asia.  By  Morgan  Potts  June  25,  2015  http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/the-­‐koreas-­‐bastion-­‐of-­‐cold-­‐war-­‐realism/      Nuclear crises, propaganda and espionage, a clash of ideologies – the Korean peninsula is the only place in the world where the Cold War lingers. This persistence is the result of the 1953 Armistice Agreement and the apparent neorealist policies employed by North Korea. Despite the problems with neorealism and its appropriately dwindling popularity, it remains a useful lens through which to understand the conflict on the peninsula, and the defensive realist reactions on the part of China and South Korea. Rather than asserting that realism or its offshoots are the

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ultimate International Relations grand theories, I suggest that neorealism remains a crucial aspect of IR security theory. The offensive realist behavior of the DPRK and the defensive realist policies of China and the South Korea serve to illustrate the unfortunate but continued significance of neorealism within international relations. Neorealism, defined by Kenneth Waltz in 1959, holds that states are unitary rational agents acting in their perceived self-interest within a system wherein each state seeks to ensure its perpetuation and maintain a balance of power. Structure is the defining feature of the theory, with states the main actors competing within an anarchic system to maintain their power and stability. The modern East Asian regional complex has security dynamics very similar to those that prevailed in the Cold War during the second half of the 20th century. Because the Korean War concluded with an armistice agreement and not a peace treaty, the Cold War on the peninsula has effectively continued, producing a subsequent nuclear proliferation; the crisis has only escalated since the DPRK announced in May 2009 that it would no longer abide by the armistice. As during the Cold War, foreign relations in the region are based on allegedly rational cost-benefit analyses of war and executing the appropriate policies. The focus of North-East Asian states has been on classic security dilemma proliferation and maintaining a balance of power to avoid war. Enjoying  this  article?  Click  here  to  subscribe  for  full  access.  Just  $5  a  month.  Just as during the 20th century Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., the objective of each actor is not to engage in war and suffer its costs and consequences; rather each state is more interested in preventing war and maintaining regional stability and their spheres of hegemony. This loosely follows the balance of power security model, which holds that: all states are power-seeking; states ultimately seek

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hegemony over their system; and that other states in the system will attempt to block those bids for hegemony. However, the regional system of East Asia is different from the Cold War bipolarity; instead, it has a multi-polar dynamic, in which China, South Korea, and the U.S. compete for regional hegemony. Actors optimally try to have good relations with the other players or minimally try to avoid hostile relations; and actors try to prevent threateningly close cooperation between the other actors. This logic is reflected in the defensive realist policies of China and South Korea, while North Korea has taken a more offensive power-seeking approach. The DPRK Strategy Offensive realism is the strategy being pursued by the DPRK, keeping John Mearsheimer’s brand of realism relevant in contemporary IR theory. This theory dictates that states seek to maximize power through increased military capability, as can be seen with North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. While it remains unknown whether or not the DPRK is seeking hegemonic status in the region as an orthodox reading of offensive realist policy would suggest, it is certain that its newfound nuclear capability is the North’s only effective foreign policy tool; without nuclear weapons, North Korea would receive very little attention, which is an international embarrassment given its grave yet largely ignored human rights crises. Yet just as realism suggests, proliferation and security are central to the foreign policy of the region. The DPRK has acted as a classical realist state in building up its nuclear arms in response to its perceived security threats. Contrary to the popular stance taken by the Western media, the perceived security threat of the U.S. is not all baseless paranoia. The Korean War, and the U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons in defense of South Korea, understandably pushed Kim Il-sung to pursue nuclear technology early on, and after China’s

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denial to share its nuclear secrets after its test in 1964 an indigenous DPRK program was pursued. The fear of a U.S. confrontation was exacerbated in the late 1960s as the U.S. placed nuclear weapons on ROK soil, and there was concern in Pyongyang that North Korea’s larger communist allies would no longer provide support as it observed the Cuban missile crisis, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the Russo-Sino split. North Korea’s security environment deteriorated with the end of the Cold War: It lost funding from the U.S.SR, South Korea flourished economically and militarily, China focused on its own economics and reached out to South Korea, and Russia recognized the ROK. Without being able to lean on the Soviets or their own declining conventional weapons program, nuclear weapons offered the most security and were therefore a logical option. Finally, with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan Iraq and the instance on regime change in Iraq, Pyongyang worried that it might be the next focus of American foreign policy and so built up its nuclear deterrent. While the perceived security threat is the main motive behind nuclearization, domestic politics and international norms also provide motivations: The focus on external threats distracts from daily grievances and gives the Kim regime power and legitimacy, and the international symbolism of nuclearization gives the DPRK a highly effective diplomatic bargaining chip, along with the international status of a modern state. The DPRK has not yet developed enrichment capabilities to enrich uranium on an industrial scale, and so is a limited nuclear power in the practical sense. Based on evidence from its May 2009 test, North Korea has approximately enough plutonium for four to eight primitive nuclear weapons; it is also safe to assume that they can only be launched over relatively short distances. Yet, this is enough to aggravate the international community and to concern its neighbors. With

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its small and militarily useless nuclear arsenal, North Korea has proven that a nuclear program does not need to be large or sophisticated to be politically effective. Defensive Realism Defensive realism shares the structural tenets of offensive realism; both emphasize the importance of balancing behavior in a chaotic international system. Yet defensive realism proposes that the unrestrained pursuit of power is counterbalancing and therefore not desirable. The PRC and ROK have reacted to North Korea’s offensive realism with defensive realist foreign policy aimed at balancing the DPRK’s aggressive behavior and calling for restraint. It must be noted that their policy motives also include suspicions about Japan, the U.S., and each other, as well as a wide range of domestic considerations, but that non-proliferation is the driving motive behind the PRC and ROK’s regional foreign policy. The most pressing concern from the region is a conflict between Pyongyang and Seoul or Tokyo; the desire to avoid such a clash is what drives relations between North Korea and its neighbors. Second to this is avoiding the potential disasters of regime change or collapse: These include a refugee crisis for China and South Korea; an economic crisis for Seoul should it absorb the North in an attempt at reunification; an economic crisis for China as the unstable region experiences capital flight; and the unpleasant realities of dealing with a humanitarian crisis should the human rights abuses occurring in the North be stopped and rectified. Finally, the region is interested in preventing North Korea from expediting nuclear crises around the world by exporting nuclear technology. All parties realize that between the options of engagement, disengagement, and containment, the former is the most appealing because it allows for the greatest potential to control, or at least influence, Pyongyang. This cost-benefit analysis is the

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framework around which defensive realist policy is formed in both China and South Korea. China is ultimately concerned with the denuclearization of North Korea. DPRK test facilities are close to the Chinese border and threaten Chinese security should an accident occur, and could already be having a negative ecological impact. More pressingly (as “hard” security concerns always trump “soft,” environmental concerns regardless of the consequential long-term ecological insecurity), the PRC does not want an expanded North Korean nuclear program that might prompt the ROK and Japan to develop nuclear weapons should they lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Further, the implications of accepting a DPRK nuclear program for the future of non-proliferation and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) do not bode well for global security, especially given the possibility of North Korean nuclear exports to non-state actors. Finally, China does not want North Korea to continue to nuclearize because it threatens China’s nuclear monopoly in the region. This follows classical realist security logic: China seeks balance and is most secure when it is the only nuclear power in the region, and therefore opposes attempts at nuclearization by other states. China is also concerned about the possible collapse of a nuclearized DPRK and the potential security consequences. From a Chinese perspective, a U.S. intervention in North Korea (a likely outcome of regime collapse) would be even less appealing than a more nuclearized DPRK. Haunted by the detriment of the Korean War and bound by the 1961 Sino-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, China seeks to avoid military conflict on the peninsula at all costs. China also has an interest in maintaining the status quo because North Korea acts as a physical buffer by which, under different circumstances, an adversary could launch an invasion of China; Beijing

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remembers the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and 1940s, and the Korean War during which enemy troops were threatening China’s border. North Korea could possibly be forced to abandon its nuclear aspirations if the PRC were to impose harsh economic sanctions, but China fears that doing so would result in internal collapse of the DPRK regime. South Korea has taken a similar defensive realist policy as China. Even following the failure of the Sunshine Policy, due in large part to the DPRK’s refusal to cooperate, the ROK has been eager to maintain peaceful if strained relations. This is mostly because South Korea has no interest in a military confrontation of any kind with the North. A conventional military conflict would certainly result in a victory for the ROK, especially with the help of the U.S. (and possibly Japan), but would devastate Seoul, which sits only 40 km from the demarcation line. Accordingly, South Korea has a sufficient deterrent under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, maintaining its defensive realist position of itself themselves without military aggression. South Korea, like China, doesn’t want the regime in the North to collapse because it would presage a massive wave of migration. South Korea is hesitant to even discuss the possibility of managing a collapsed North Korea for fear that it would invite unwanted intervention, forever thwarting hopes for reunification. The ROK and China also share apprehensions about the potential fate of North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear weapons and technology should the North collapse. The PRC government’s legitimacy is premised on continued economic growth; therefore the state’s economic interests are also its security interests, and China’s economic interests are deeply tied to stability in Korea. A conflict on the peninsula would damage Chinese production, foreign direct investment, liquidity, and trade, and it would aversely influence the huge Sino-South Korean trade relationship by

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diverting economic resources into North Korea. The PRC, with pressure from the U.S., agreed to United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions condemning North Korea along with mild economic sanctions against Pyongyang, but even the most scathing of these have been relatively benign. In its cautious position, China also affirms that the DPRK has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy after it returns to the NPT, and maintains that there is no solution available other than continued dialogue between the concerned parties. The PRC is also allied with the DPRK for political reasons, but their historic communist connection has been tested by what Beijing views as Pyongyang’s insolence and incendiary rhetoric: the fraternal relationship is tense as the big brother finds the younger one’s international temper tantrums a treat to the security and prosperity of the region. Like China, the legitimacy of the ROK government is partially based on economic growth, and the security of the state depends to some extent on continued economic prosperity. Unsurprisingly, the North was adamantly opposed to the Sunshine Policy’s principle of reciprocity though it continued the opportunistic exploitation of it. North Korea desperately needs the economic aid and wants assurance that North-South relations include aid and assured security. South Korean economic concerns have escalated with the increased North-South animosity of the Lee administration, culminating in the March 2010 sinking of the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea and again highlighting the security issues of the region. China and South Korea have a shared security interest in preventing war on the Korean peninsula and avoiding a DPRK regime change, employing similar policies based on realist thinking. While North Korea behaves in an offensive realist manner as it nuclearizes in an attempt to accumulate and display power, the PRC and ROK have responded with

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defensive realist policies aimed at maintaining stability on the Korean peninsula with the intention of avoiding undesired conflict. This case study provides evidence that classical realism remains a fundamental aspect of IR and security theory, and has not declined since the end of the Cold War; states continue to act in their perceived self-interest with an emphasis on state security and power relations. The ongoing nuclear crisis also holds significant implications for the future of global non-proliferation and global security as rogue states and non-state actors acquire nuclear technology. Morgan Potts is an assistant editor at Sino-NK, and a production editor at the British Association for Korean Studies.