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The Utility of Force in a World of Scarcity
- International Security
- The MIT Press
- Volume 22, Number 3, Winter 1997/98
- pp. 138-167
- Article
- Additional Information
The Utilityo f Force i na World o f Scarcity I F r o m the dawn of John Orme modern history to the mid-twentieth century, relations between states were conducted in an atmosphere darkened by the ever present possibility of violence . Although moral conceptions imposed some restraints on the actions of statesmen, in the absence of a world government and firm moral consensus, issues could rarely be settled solely by appeals to reason and justice. Coercion, not persuasion, was thus an all-too-frequent means of resolving disputes, and because the resort to force could never be completely precluded, organized violence became the most effective form of coercion and the ultimate arbiter in world politics. Even when disputes were ended through negotiation, the threat of force still lay in the background and shaped the results profoundly. As Nicholas Spykman concluded in the grim world of the early 1940s,world politics is power politics and the ultimate form of power in that domain is military force.' In the past five decades, however, the great powers have shown increasing reluctance to employ force overtly against one another or even against weaker states. Their apparent hesitation has led several sophisticated observers of international affairs to conclude that the once-central role of armed force is rapidly diminishing, perhaps soon to the point of irrelevance. The central assertion of these authors is that the costs, risks, and difficulties in applying force are rising while the benefits derived therefrom are declining.*This optimistic schoolhas presented an impressivecase with important implicationsfor JohnOrme is Professor of Politicsat Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia,and author of Deterrence, Reputation, and Cold War Cycles (London: Macmillan, 1992). He is at work on a book exploring why international rivals make peace. The author would like to thank Dan Kaufman, Michael Mazarr, Brad Stone, the Emory Seminar on International Security, and several anonymous readers for their comments. None bears any responsibility for the errors of fact or interpretation that remain. 1. Nicholas J. Spykman, America's Strategy in World Politics (New York: Archon, 1970),p. 18. 2. Leading representatives of this school include Klaus Knorr, The Power of Nations (New York: Basic Books, 1975);John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989); Richard Ullman, Securing Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991);Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York Basic Books, 1986); Evan Luard, The Blunted Sword: The Erosion of Military Power in Modern World Politics (New York New Amsterdam, 1988); Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York Avon, 1992);and Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real World Order (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1993). International Security, Vol.22, No. 3 (Winter 1!?97/98), pp. 138-167 0 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 138 The Utility of Force in a World of Scarcity I 139 the future of international politics, the academic study of international relations , and the conduct of U.S. foreign and defense policy. It deserves a serious and systematicresponse. The aim of this article is to provide it. It commences with a critical review and synthesis of the arguments that have been offered to sustain the conclusion that force is declining in utility. The following three sections, which comprise the bulk of the article, then describe, explain, and analyze the consequences of three ongoing developments that may confound optimistic expectationsby increasing the ease and value of territorial acquisition and thereby heighten the importance of military force in world politics. These trends are the revolution in military affairs (RMA),the coming surge in world population, and the spread of industrialization to the developing nations . The concluding section considers the prospect that, at some point in the next century, the international arena could return to a Hobbesian state of war. Grounds for Optimism Many observers have attributed the diminished visibility of military force above all else to the presence of nuclear weapons. Not only do these fearsome devices act as mutual deterrents, they maintain, but the prospect that even the most limited use of...