Realism and the End of the Cold War

Reahm and the End o f the ColdW m as a reaction to the breakdown of the post-World I M o d e r n realism began War I international order in the 1930s. The collapse of great-power cooperation after World War I1 helped establish it as the dominant approach to the theory and practice of international politics in the United States. During the Cold War, efforts to displace realism from its dominant position were repeatedly thwarted by the continued salience of the US.-Soviet antagonism: although indirect, the connection between events and theory was undeniable. Now, the U.S.-Soviet antagonism is history. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and with hardly a shot fired in anger, Russian power has been withdrawn from the Elbe to the Eurasian steppe. A central question faces students and practitioners of international politics. Do the rapid decline and comparatively peaceful collapse of the Soviet state, and with it the entire postwar international order, discredit the realist approach? Scholars have answered this question in two ways. Most argue that the events of the late 1980sand early 1990sutterly confound realism's expectations, and call into question its relevance for understanding the post-Cold War world.' Others-realist and non-realist alike-disagree, maintaining that the ~ William C. Wohlforth is Assistant Professor at the Department of Politics, Princeton University. He is the editor of Witnesses to the End of the Cold War (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 1995). I am grateful to Chip Blacker, David Dessler, Lynn Eden, David Holloway, Oliver Meier, Michael McFaul, Sarah Mendelson, Jon Mercer, and Pascal Venneson for their most helpful comments on earlier drafts. I wrote this article while a Social Science Fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control. My thanks to the Center and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for supporting my fellowship. 1. See Charles W. Kegley,Jr., "The Neoidealist Moment in International Studies? Realist Myths and the New International Realities," International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2 (June 1993),pp. 131147 ,and the sources cited therein; Richard Ned Lebow, "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failureof Realism," and Rey Koslowskiand Friedrich Kratochwil, "Understanding Change in International Relations: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System," both in International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Spring 1994);Friedrich Kratochwil, "The Embarrassment of Changes: Neo-Realism as the Science of Realpolitik without Politics," Revim of International Studies, Vol. 19,No. 1(January1993),pp. 63-80;John LewisGaddis, "International RelationsTheory and the End of the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Winter 1992/93), pp. 5-58; Thomas Risse-Kappenand Richard Ned Lebow, "International RelationsTheory and the Transformation of the International System," draft introduction (September 1993) for Risse-Kappen and International Security, Winter 1994/95 (Vol. 19, No. 31, pp. 91-129 0 1995 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 91 International Security 19:3 1 92 post-1989 transformation of international politics is not an appropriate test for theory. The end of the Cold War, they argue, was “merely a single data point.” Even if it is inconsistent with realism it is insufficient to falsify it, because international relations theories are capable only of predicting patterns of behavior ; they cannot make point predictions. And many scholars are pessimistic about the capacity of social science theory to explain unique and complex historical events involving revolutionary change. Therefore, our evaluation of theory should look to future patterns rather than past events.* Both answers are wrong. Realist theories are not invalidated by the post-1989 transformation of world politics. Indeed, they explain much of the story. Realism is rich and varied, and cannot be limited just to structural realism, which deals poorly with ~ h a n g e . ~ Many criticisms of realism based on the post-1989 system transformation contrast the most parsimonious form of realism, Kenneth Waltz’s structural realism, with the richest and most context-specific alternative explanations derived from liberalism, the new institutionalism, or constructivism. This is not a fair or convincing approach to the evaluation of theories. Instead, a thoroughly realist explanation of the Cold War’s...