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This paper focuses on the resurgence of Liberalism after the Cold War.
| Karl Marx declared that capitalism would inevitably collapse:
the bourgeoisie generating their own grave-diggers. Adolph Hitler proclaimed that his was
a thousand-year Reich. With a similar sense of triumphalism, Francis Fukuyama
announced the end of history.
The time was one of big events, and it seemed only right that the assertions about the future world match them for magnitude. From 1989 to 1991, the Soviet Union and its orbit of satellite states unravelled. Its demise was not mourned by many in the West: it was a self-proclaimed utopia which lacked the basic values of the West - democracy and human rights - and at least in theory sought to spread its system by world revolution. The exuberance at its fall flowed naturally into commentary. Liberal internationalists come in a variety of shades. The future was going to be better than the past, but the reasons varied markedly. Many of the arguments were not new, being made by a variety of authors from Kant onwards. Nor was it unusual for a cataclysmic event to spark more optimism - both world wars and many major wars had done that. This essay seeks to identify the major rationales for a better future. |
Virtual War College recommendsBuy from Amazon.com Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man Buy from Amazon.com Zakaria, The New Shape of World Politics: Contending Paradigms in International Relations Other useful linksRoger Kimball, "Francis Fukuyama & the end of history", New Criterion Fadia Gharib, Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man: Another Interpretation Booknote Transcript: Francis Fukuyama The George Bush Presidential Library
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| A non-trivial issue is what constitutes "liberals".
Many definitions exist in the literature, but the steps on the continuum liberal -
idealist - optimist can be virtually indistinguishable. For my purposes, I have assumed
that a liberal internationalist is someone that believes that the use of force can (and
should) be eliminated or minimised by appeal to human nature. They do not see
fundamentally the disestablishment of nation states although they can see a possibility of
some diminished role. This aversion to war and faith in human nature makes the liberal
internationalist an optimist almost by definition. There is a risk in proceeding beyond
this. For example, Michael Howard’s definition of a "liberal" excludes
Fukuyama despite the fact that Fukuyama proclaims himself as a champion of liberalism. At
the other extreme, George Bush may express quite liberal ideas but eschews the liberal
label. With such a broad definition, liberal internationalists can see the way to a better future following many different paths and having a multitude of causes - and as identified below, this is the case. |
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| The United Nations Charter had already outlawed aggressive
wars. Some commentators, such as Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Gareth Evans, saw renewed hope
for the UN after almost fifty years. No longer was there direct confrontation between the
superpowers, which led to one of them always wishing to frustrate the other’s
initiatives as a demonstration of macho. Cooperation amongst the superpowers meant that
the Security Council could take action where previously it had been hamstrung by the veto
exercised by one of the Permanent Five. Those placing faith in the United Nations took a range of perspectives, from those (like Bush) who saw that economic sanctions and military action under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter as important steps to guaranteeing peace, to those that emphasised more peaceful measures. The enforcement extreme saw the intervention in Kuwait as an example of how the UN should work - and Somalia and Rwanda as examples of where it could not. Those emphasising the United Nations’ capacity to resolve disputes peacefully looked at other aspects. The UN and its associated bodies could address underlying causes of tension: poverty, environmental degradation, and so on. It could serve as a forum for meaningful disarmament. The UN could provide good offices in negotiating issues under dispute, fact-finding, and confidence building; while the World Court could impose equitable resolutions. If need be, the UN can act directly to see a transition to peaceful arrangements, providing peacekeepers and observers, monitoring elections, and so forth. All the UN needed was the necessary will and resources from its member states. |
Other useful linksBoutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventative diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping Gareth Evans: Speeches and papers Charter of the United Nations International Court of Justice (World Court)
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| Another group of commentators saw that peace would eventuate
through developments in ideas, beliefs and attitudes throughout the world. Changes were
taking place in humankind that made them less likely to go to war. The major change was
the widespread adoption of liberal democratic forms of government. The most extreme position was taken by Fukuyama, who stated that:
In his view, liberal democracy was the ultimate form of government and that the force of history would see it supplant all others. Other observers took a more cautious approach, simply citing the spread of democracy as it had been observed as a positive sign. The underlying theme of these arguments was that democratic states were less warlike, at least in their relations with other democratic states. Being founded on principles such as participation, tolerance, ownership of private property and public control over elected officials, democracies are more pacific than other states. A variant on this theme was proposed by John Mueller. He saw war sinking into irrelevance: "…like dueling and slavery, subrationally unthinkable and therefore obsolescent." To Mueller, war is not a successful policy option and the course of the past century the last romantic illusions about it had been dispelled - leaving war as "repulsive, immoral and uncivilized". In framing his argument, Mueller does not rely on democracy, but he does restrict his arguments to the "developed world". |
Virtual War College recommendsBuy from Amazon.com Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man Buy from Amazon.com John Mueller, Retreat
from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War |
| Closely related to the arguments about the spread of ideas
are those about material well being. Wealth presents some contradictions as it provides
the wherewithal for military action. Yet many commentators see wealth as a path both to
democracy and civilised behaviour. As states become wealthier, they are more satisfied and
less attracted by the risks of military adventure. Where the wealthy state did use its
military strength, it was for good. Power, democracy and benevolence had seemingly merged
in the new era. Some, like Fukuyama, saw that the fact that increased wealth was being generated through "liberal economics". He argued that, just as liberal democracy was the end-state of political development, only capitalist culture, market forces and competition could generate wealth… "No other path towards full economic modernity has proven to be viable." The interrelationship between political choice and the free market is not immediately apparent, but Fukuyama argued that the "desire for recognition, then, can provide the missing link between liberal economics and liberal politics…" In his formulation, economic growth plus recognition led to liberal democracy. At the same time irrational expressions of recognition, such as imperialism were eliminated. Yet the evidence for such forces is slim. Fukuyama is forced to turn to the attractiveness of consumerism as an element of western culture. He thus argues that the "ultimate victory of the VCR" is that it forced the adoption of economic liberalism. Despite this, he is not alone in arguing that the success of the West will serve as a beacon for others to follow. A third variant of this argument focussed on the links generated between nations by increasing trade and economic interaction. According to this thesis, nations enjoy the benefits of close economic contacts, and hence are reluctant to risk them. Increasingly they become used to working together. And finally, some of the close contact and cooperation in the economic sphere spills over in the cultural sphere. |
Virtual War College recommendsBuy from Amazon.com Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man |
| Throughout the Cold War, it was the Realist school of
international relations that held sway. The Cold War was dominated by a confrontation of
force and it appeared that the cold, rational calculations of the school must be the
logical course. Even Fukuyama agreed "The twentieth century, it is safe to say, has
made all of us into deep historical pessimists."
However, in the new era pessimism went onto the back foot. Three issues were important in making the old theories of the past unpopular. Firstly, the way the Soviet Union broke up was a challenge to the underlying assumptions of Realism. Seemingly, one day the World faced a hulking superpower and the next day it was gone. According to Realists, survival was the prime objective of the state. They assumed the fate of major powers would be decided by interaction with other powers - and inevitably that would involve conflict and loss of life. Meanwhile, they paid little attention to the internal workings of the state. Realism failed to explain how internal factors within the state could lead to such major changes by themselves - as happened to the Soviet Union. Secondly, the new era was one of optimism. It was clear to the casual observer that things were getting better and not worse. Realism took war and conflict to be facts of life, often based on an assumption that man was greedy and selfish. The psychology had changed. The old pessimism of Realism seemed inappropriate to the new era. Finally, the pessimists could not agree on the future shape of the world. In the past they could make simple extrapolations of the consequences of Soviet power. Now, while the liberal internationalists could not agree on the mechanisms to achieve a more peaceful world, they at least agreed that this was the way things were going. For the pessimists there was no such agreement. At one extreme there was fragmentation and anarchy - a return to the middle ages. At the other there were new power blocs constructed on cultural or economic bases. Without a common theme, the pessimists remained divided. Realism struggled in the wake of the Soviet collapse. Its very name was supposed to reflect its aim - to describe what was "real". Yet, it appeared that to have lost both its explanatory and predictive power to the more optimistic alternatives. |
Virtual War College recommendsBuy from Amazon.com Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order Other useful linksBuy from Amazon.com Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War |
| Despite all these arguments liberal internationalists agreed
that war would continue for some time. According to Fukuyama it was history that would end
and not violence. Peace would still take some time to establish in the developing world.
Mueller also acknowledged that war would persist in the developing world. Singer and
Wildavsky’s zones of peace, wealth and democracy contained only 15 per cent of the
world’s population - the rest live in zones of turmoil. Is the liberal ideal at best
a 15 per cent solution? The United Nations only briefly looked like the solution to warfare. In the end, its effectiveness was determined by the extent of support of the United States. The Gulf War, like the Korean War before it, was conducted by the United States and its allies with only a UN label. The effectiveness of the UN depended as much as ever on the active involvement of the US and its funding. Realists acted unsurprised - having argued that such institutions reflected the self-interest of member states rather than being able to act as an independent restraint on violence. While authors on all sides of the debate seem content to place liberal democracy on a pedestal as the superior form of government - this often reflects a personal preference. Some attempt had been made at analytical observation, but scope still exists for argument. Relatively few democracies have existed until recent times, and room exists to debate whether some of the older ones were truly democratic until they had adopted universal suffrage and human rights. Over the last 50 years it could be argued that the Cold War, with the superpowers maintaining discipline in their camps, prevented such conflicts arising (such as between Greece and Turkey). Nor does the spread of democracy say anything about the wars caused to achieve it, or the likelihood of violence between and with non-democratic states. Even if liberals win their argument that liberal democracy is a more peaceful form of government, notwithstanding the problems of transition and interaction with non-democratic governments, there is little to support the inevitability of liberal democracy spreading quickly. Certainly, it has made enormous progress over the past decade, but who is to say whether this will continue or simply prove to be a short-lived spurt? Just as Communism was collapsing in Europe, China veered strongly towards authoritarianism - signalling their resolve with the Tiananmen Square massacre. Many cases exist in the past of other states being dragged back from democratic government. Fukuyama claims that that the progress towards democracy is an inevitable one, but he rests his case on the shoulders of Hegel. Hegel had dated the end of history at 1806 - and Fukuyama is loathed to contradict the master - but since that time there has been two world wars, an unprecedented Cold War, and more loss of life than ever before in history. The strength of the economic arguments is also subject to challenge. Some question whether viable economic models - between the command economy and pure market forces might also lead to wealth. With the recent collapse of several Asian currencies, what appeared to be a viable alternative - the market with strong government protection and guidance - also fell by the wayside. Others question the theoretical link between liberal politics (premised on man’s humanity) and liberal economics (premised on man’s greed). The power of the restraint imposed by international contact has also been the subject of debate. |
Virtual War College recommendsBuy from Amazon.com Max Singer and Aaron B. Wildavsky. The Real World Order : Zones of Peace, Zones of Turmoil Buy from Amazon.com Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man Other useful links
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| Perhaps the greatest irony is created by the position of the
United States. Today the US towards over the world as an unequalled military and economic
superpower. Its nearest rivals are only half its strength. By the Realist analysis we are
in a unipolar world, with the US able to impose its will as it chooses - and it chooses
liberal measures. From the time of Woodrow Wilson to the current day, American politicians have believed that the world would be a better place if it just resembled the fifty states. Both Republicans, like Reagan and Bush, and Democrats, like Clinton and Carter, have argued passionately for the spread of democracy - and at times have used their national power to achieve it. It was US muscle that at times has made the United Nations appear credible, and it was US and allied aid that has been important for the growth of many newly emerging democracies. Critiques of US foreign policy see a darker side to the American embrace of liberal principles. Noam Chomsky argues that the "New World Order" is simply code for a continued interventionist policy. Rather than seeing US hegemony as benign, he argues that it should be something to be feared. |
Virtual War College recommendsOther useful linksBuy from Amazon.com Louis Auchincloss, Woodrow Wilson (Penguin Lives) |
| In the wake of the Cold War liberal internationalists saw
cause for optimism lying in three fields: the role of institutions, the realm of ideas and
realm of material wealth. The institutions prime amongst them the UN, could address the
fundamental causes of inequity and discontent, could mediate between parties and if need
be could punish aggressors. In the philosophical and political arena, the immediate threat
posed by the Cold War had been removed, democracy was spreading (perhaps irreversibly) and
war was increasingly seen as obsolescent as a tool of policy. Finally, in economics,
states became wealthier and more satisfied, and more inclined to pursue the democratic
models of the West, while increasing global contacts raised the hope of shared interests
and reduced suspicions. Often unspoken was the essential role to be played by the United
States - at least benign and at most activist. Despite this, there are weaknesses with all these arguments. As such, the liberal internationalists are unlikely to fully convince the pessimists from the realist camp. Equally, those from the left are unlikely to see that the spread of liberal democratic capitalism - as encapsulated in the American ideal - is an unblemished good. The end of the Cold War might serve as a positive sign of a better future - but it offers no guarantees. The debate in international relations is likely to continue undiminished. |
Prepared by and copyright © Martin Dunn, 1998-2000
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