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Realism and Neorealism · Diplomacy and International Relations

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Welcome to The Deep Dive, the place where we cut through the
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noise and give you the essential architecture of global politics
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and history. Indeed.
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This deep dive is entitled Diplomacy and International
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Relations by Bastian Freiborg. And our mission today, well,
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it's a big one. We're tackling one of the most
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persistent and frankly powerful theoretical frameworks out
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there, realism. Yeah, we're definitely going
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beneath the surface today. We want to explore that great
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debate that really defines international relations theory.
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We're dissecting the core schools, you know, classical
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realism, near realism, and the newer neoclassical realism.
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And we're trying to answer for you what feels like a single
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critical question, which is, are the massive decisions, the big
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moves in global power? Are they purely dictated by
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these cold, objective structural forces?
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Or, you know, do the messy human bits, the quality of leaders,
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culture, even simple misperception.
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Do they still hold the most sway?
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And this isn't just some dusty academic debate, right?
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Not at all. We're exploring A theoretical
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struggle that, I mean, it goes back literally 2500 years to
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succinities, but it's also the main lens people are using right
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now to analyze the US China rivalry or conflicts like the
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war in Ukraine. Exactly.
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So if you really need to understand the kind of operating
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system of global power, whether you're just super or maybe
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you're prepping for a high stakes policy meeting, you are
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definitely in the right place. Absolutely.
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And just before we really dive into this huge intellectual
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struggle, you know, structure versus agency, just a quick
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note. Go ahead.
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If you find this level of analysis valuable, you can
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actually subscribe on Spotify or Apple podcast.
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It's a small monthly fee and that support, well, it really
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helps us keep these deep dives going.
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Plus you get access to some extra episodes.
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The link of course is right there in the description for
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you. Great.
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OK, then let's get into it. The core conflict structure
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versus agency. So when most people hear
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international politics, they probably think of realism,
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right? This idea that the world's
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inherently anarchic politics is this constant, maybe even
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tragic, struggle for power. That's the common understanding,
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yeah. But even within that realist
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family, there's this huge disagreement about where that
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struggle actually comes from, it's root cause.
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And that brings us to what some call the great theoretical
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divorce classical realism versus neo realism.
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That's a good way to put it. And that divorce really centers
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on where you locate the cause, the driver, classical realism.
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Fundamentally, it's what we call a unit level theory.
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OK. Unit level.
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Remind us what that means in terms of those levels of
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analysis. Right.
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So you got the three main levels, first level the
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individual leaders, decision makers, their psychology, second
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level the state, domestic politics, regime type, culture.
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And third level the international system itself, the
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structure anarchy. Got it, Classical realism.
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It mainly focuses on those first 2 levels, the individual and the
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state. So figures like Hans Morgenthau,
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he's tracing that drive for power all the way back to, well,
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flawed human nature. He's looking at leader, the
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human being, and then kind of generalizing upwards to the
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state. Precisely, Morgenthau worked
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from this fundamental ascension that human nature is, in his
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words, incomplete. Incomplete.
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What did he mean by that exactly?
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Not just morally. Bad.
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Well, not just moral failure, though that's part of it.
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It was more like a basic, unavoidable human
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characteristic. You know, the will to dominate,
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the desire for control, and also the inherent limits of human
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reason. And this drive for power, this
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animus dominandi, it gets transferred into state action.
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So political events become, in a way, an inevitable reflection of
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man's nature. Which is why classical realism
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is inductive, right? It looks at specific units,
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specific leaders or States, and then generalizes from those
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observations. Exactly.
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Inductive. And crucially, because human
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nature is seen as the source, Morgenthau's framework still had
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a really vital, sometimes messy, role for morality and ethics.
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Right, he wasn't saying statesman should be immoral
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power grabbers. At all.
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He defined the national interest in terms of power.
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Yet yes, that's central. But he also heavily stressed the
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role of prudence in statecraft, wisdom, caution.
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He argued that the actual conduct of statesman, their
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moral quality, their wisdom was essential.
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He even thought a kind of moral consensus among nations was a
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prerequisite for any functional international order.
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He even called out specific regimes, didn't he?
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He did. He specifically identified, for
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example, the moral and intellectual deformation caused
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by totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union at the time as
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something that makes quote normal relations quite
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impossible. That's a profoundly human unit
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level diagnosis when you say. Definitely.
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It's all about the internal character, the human element.
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And then along comes the revolution.
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Kenneth Waltz, Neorealism, structural realism.
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Late 1970s. Yeah.
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The game changer. And Waltz basically looks at
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Morgenthau and says you're looking in the wrong place,
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right? He argues.
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Human nature is constant, It's always been flawed.
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So how can it explain the changes why we have periods of
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peace and periods of war? Exactly.
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Waltz wanted something cleaner, more scientific, You could say
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parsimonious. So he basically jettisoned the
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1st 2 levels of analysis, the individual, the state, and
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focused exclusively on the third level, the international system
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structure. And that structure is defined
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simply by anarchy, the absence of a central authority.
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That's the defining feature, yes.
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Anarchy. The absence of a legitimate
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world government above the states.
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But wait, if anarchy just means no government, why does that
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automatically mean a struggle for power?
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Can states just, you know, get along?
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Well, that's where the structural part becomes
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absolutely essential for Waltz because there's no central
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authority to enforce contracts or protect the weak or plenish
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aggressors. The system is fundamentally a
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self help system. Self help.
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OK, Every state has to constantly prioritize its own
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survival and security above all else.
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There's no one else reliably coming to save you, right?
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And this necessity imposed by the structure forces all states,
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regardless of whether they're democracies or dictatorships,
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regardless of the moral character of their leaders.
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It forces them to prioritize capabilities and power just to
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survive. So Waltz is deductive.
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He starts with this universal structure, anarchy, and then
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deduces what the units the states must logically do to
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survive within it. Precisely deductive logic.
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And he famously characterized theories that derive from human
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nature or domestic politics, which, let's face it, included
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most of classical realism and other theories like Lenin's
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theory of imperialism. He called them reductionist.
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Reductionist because. They reduce the explanation of
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international politics as a whole down to factors that, in
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his view, only explain the foreign policy of a specific
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state at a specific time. They weren't capturing the
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overarching system dynamics that affected everyone.
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He wanted a theory of international politics, the big
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picture, not just foreign policy, the specific choices.
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Correct for Walt, because that anarchic structure is the same
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for all states. They're all, in a sense,
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functional equal. They all share the same primary
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interest, survival, and their behavior is primarily determined
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not by who's in charge, but by the distribution of capabilities
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in the system. Basically, how many great powers
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are there? Is a bipolar or multiple?
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So that creates this really deep theoretical break, doesn't it?
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Is conflict caused by the flawed leader the human element, like
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Morgenthau thought? Or is it the dangerous world
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they all inhabit, like Waltz argued?
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Structure versus agency again. That's the fundamental divide,
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yes. OK, so if anarchy forces states
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into self help, the core strategic response is the
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balance of power. It's central to all realism,
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really. Absolutely central.
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But that structure versus agency divide we just talked about, it
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fundamentally changes how classical realists and
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neorealists see the Bo pee working.
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It really does. And you know, the idea itself
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isn't new. It's ancient, but it got formal,
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even legal teeth centuries ago. Pray I remember reading about
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that. Yeah, long before modern
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realism, thinkers like Grosch's back in the 17th century were
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formulating BOPI is a fundamental principle of
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diplomacy. It was even explicitly written
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into major treaties like the Treaty of You tracked in 1713.
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You tracked, right? What did it say?
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It basically framed the balance of power as a necessary
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condition to ensure, and I'm paraphrasing here, that no one
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state should be able absolutely to predominate and upset the
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peace of Europe. So historically, it wasn't just
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seen as something that happens naturally, like gravity, it was
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seen as a kind of legal or even ethical duty for states.
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Yes, exactly. It was considered the essential
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condition for what they called the Federal Community of
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European States. And this principle implied not
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just a right, but actually a duty for any power to interfere,
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even using force. If that fundamental balance was
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threatened. It was a moral commitment, an
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act of prudence to maintain stability.
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OK, that's the older, more agency driven view.
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But then Waltz and the Neorealists come along.
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And they essentially stripped out the duty, the norms, the
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diplomacy part. Waltz's balance of power is,
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well, it's purely mechanical. Mechanical and objective like
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physics. Pretty much.
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Neorealism sees the balance of power as an almost static
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automatic situation. It's just a constant feature of
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the anarchic system. States like billiard balls
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reacting to being hit automatically formed counter
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coalitions when another state's capabilities grow threateningly
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large. So it's just about the numbers,
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the quantitative distribution of power, agency, conscious choice,
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diplomacy. That's mostly irrelevant.
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Largely irrelevant to the core mechanism, yes.
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For Walt's, the system dictates the balancing outcome almost
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automatically. But if the near realist model is
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so mechanical, how does it account for periods in history
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where the balance of power was clearly managed by conscious
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human choices, by diplomacy, not just brute force reacting?
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That's exactly where classical realists and many historians
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would point to systems like the Concert of Europe.
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The Concert of Europe after Napoleon, right.
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Congress of Vienna, 1815. Exactly.
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The concert provides a really powerful counter argument to a
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purely mechanical view of the balance of power.
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So tell us what made the concert different.
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It wasn't just another military alliance against a potential
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threat. Oh, far from it.
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It was designed by the winners of the Napoleonic Wars, yes, but
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it went way beyond just crude checks and balances on power.
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It was fundamentally an exercise in shared norms and legitimacy.
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Shared norms? How so?
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Well, the major powers agreed on certain common principles that
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maybe the most important was that overall systemic stability
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was more valuable than maximizing their own individual
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gains at every turn. They were motivated by the
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fresh, brutal memory of decades of revolutionary and Napoleonic
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wars, and they sought to maintain stability through
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frequent high level diplomatic conferences, talking,
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negotiating, managing crises before they exploded.
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So states weren't just counting tanks and ships, they were
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calculating sort of relational power.
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Who was perceived as a friend? Who is an enemy?
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Who could be trusted? Precisely.
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The system stability rested quite heavily on a shared elite
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culture to some extent and what was called a degree of moral
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consensus, and the major powers, particularly Britain and Austria
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under Medernic, showed extraordinary prudence.
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You could argue, for instance, the architects of the system,
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people like Medernic Taliran from France, they made a
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conscious decision not to humiliate France, the recently
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defeated aggressor. Which is kind of
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counterintuitive from a pure power perspective.
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Totally. Instead of carving France up or
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crippling it, they chose to integrate it back into the
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system as a stable, legitimate component of the new order.
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That decision to integrate, not punish, that seems like pure
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agency statecraft. It flies right in the face of a
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mechanical model that would just predict the strongest ganging up
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on the loser to maximize their gains.
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Absolutely. It highlights the catalytic role
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of individual personalities, of diplomatic skill.
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The stability they achieved for several decades at least, wasn't
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just down to armies balancing each other.
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It's very much about the quality of diplomacy.
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So if Waltz is right that anarchy just dictates behavior,
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then a system like the concert, relying so much on norms and
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active management really shouldn't have worked, or at
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least not lasted as long as it did.
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That's the argument. It's survival really depended on
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statesman consciously choosing to overcome the immediate
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aggressive of impulses that anarchy often encourages.
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It suggests agency can moderate structure, at least sometimes.
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OK, so near realism with its structural focus seemed really
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elegant and powerful for explaining the Cold War, that
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stable bipolar system between the US and USSR.
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It did explain a lot about that area.
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Yeah, but then the Soviet Union collapsed and the theory kind of
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hit a brick wall, didn't it? This new reality, a unipolar
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world. the US has the sole superpower created, what people
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call the massive unipolar puzzle.
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It was a. Huge anomaly, a real shock for
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strict structural realism because if the balance of power
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is truly mechanical and automatic.
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Then the moment the USSR disappeared and power became
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overwhelmingly concentrated in Washington.
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Then other major powers, think Russia, China, maybe United
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Europe, Japan. They should have immediately
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started forming a hard military counter coalition to balance
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against the US to restore equilibrium.
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But they didn't, not really. Instead, what did we see?
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NATO expanded eastward, American interventions increased.
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And globally, there was this reluctance to openly challenge
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U.S. military dominance. Right.
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Scholars at the time noted that even though power was quote, as
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unbalanced as it has ever been, the actual balancing tendencies
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against the US were, quote, remarkably mild.
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Even Wallace himself admitted around 2000 that the unipolar
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condition was kind of unnatural relative to his own structural
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predictions. So that failure, that puzzle,
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forced an evolution in realist thinking.
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It had to the theory needed refinement, and one of the first
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theoretical responses developed in the early 2000s was the
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concept of soft balancing. Soft balancing OK, how did that
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try to fix Near Realism's problem?
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Well, soft balancing was essentially developed to try and
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retroactively explain the unipolar anomaly.
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The argument was that states were actually balancing against
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the US hyper power, but they were using non military non
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traditional means. Subtle stuff.
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Like what? Not tanks and alliances, but.
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Things like diplomatic maneuvering, maybe institutional
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obstruction, using the UN Security Council veto, for
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instance, to block US initiatives, or coordinating
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policies in international economic forums, using
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international law arguments, that kind of thing.
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So using economics, diplomacy, institutions instead of just
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military buildups, can you give a sort of contemporary example
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of how that might look? Sure, think about cooperation
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among major developing economies like the BRICS group, Brazil,
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Russia, India, China, South Africa, and now others.
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Now, these states rarely agree on everything, obviously, But
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they do collaborate on things like establishing parallel
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financial institutions, alternatives to the World Bank
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or IMF. They work on increasing trade in
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currencies other than the US dollar.
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They coordinate diplomatic stances, sometimes to constrain
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American political or economic leverage.
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It's arguably soft balancing in action, trying to limit US
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dominance without resorting to direct military confrontation.
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But the criticism, I guess, is that if you stretch the
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definition of balance to include things like vetoing AUN
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resolution or just having a negative opinion of US foreign
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policy, haven't you kind of softened balancing beyond
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recognition? That's precisely the critique,
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many argued. It stretched the concept too
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thin, and more importantly, it felt like you were moving back
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into explaining specific foreign policy choices, which is exactly
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what Waltz wanted to exclude from his international politics
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theory. Right.
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So this difficulty in predicting specific state responses,
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whether they balance traditionally or soft balance or
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do something else entirely, it really exposed the limits of
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pure neorealism. You did because structure alone
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wasn't telling you which strategy a state would pick, and
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states have other options besides balancing.
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Even within a structural framework, they can choose
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bandwagoning or buck passing. OK, bandwagoning, joining the
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stronger side. That makes intuitive sense.
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Maybe for smaller states? Exactly.
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Usually the calculations pretty simple.
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Weaker states often bandwagon because their own resources
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wouldn't really tip the balance anyway, so they can bandwagon
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defensively just to avoid being attacked by the big guy, or they
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might bandwagon offensively, hoping to share in the spoils if
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the dominant power wins something.
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Think about smaller European states often aligning very
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closely with the dominant regional power, whether that was
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Germany historically or the US today, seeking protection and
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economic benefits rather than costly resistance.
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Makes sense. And then there's buck passing.
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That sounds riskier. Passing the buck.
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It is definitely the high risk, high reward strategy.
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It's strategically avoiding confronting an aggressor
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yourself and instead trying to shift the responsibility and the
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cost onto another state. You hope the buck catcher will
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deal with the threat, absorbing the military and financial
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burden of balancing. But the obvious downside?
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It's huge. If the state you pass the buck
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to the buck catcher fails or gets defeated, then you are
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likely the next target and you haven't prepared your own
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defenses because you are or hoping someone else would do the
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hard work. Can we see that risk play out
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historically? Oh, absolutely.
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A classic, though complex, example often cited is the
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Soviet Union signing the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi
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Germany in 1939. Right, the non aggression pact.
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Effectively, Stalin passed the buck for confronting Hitler on
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to France and Britain, buying the USSR.
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Time he hoped. But when France collapsed so
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quickly in 1940, the Soviet Union was left dangerously
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exposed. It really demonstrates the
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massive gamble involved in buck passing.
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OK, so if pure structural theory like Waltz's couldn't reliably
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predict which strategy a state would choose, balancing,
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bandwagoning, buck passing even under similar systemic
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pressures, then the theory needed to evolve again.
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Exactly. And that's where neoclassical
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realism NCR comes in. It really emerged in the 1990s
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and 2000s to bridge this gap. So NCR is trying to synthesize
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the two earlier schools. In a way, yes.
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It's the ultimate synthesis. You could say it starts with the
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basic near realist premise, the international system structure,
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anarchy, the distribution of power is the primary driver, the
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first thing you look. At OK, structure still matters
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most. But crucially, NCR acknowledges
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that these systemic pressures, these signals from the
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international environment, they don't just automatically
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translate into state behavior. They have to be filtered through
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the state itself through unit level factors.
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So the structure is maybe like the overall weather forecast,
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yeah. But the unit level factors are
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like whether you decide to take an umbrella or wear shorts based
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on that forecast plus your own preferences.
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That's a pretty good analogy. NCR aims to explain why states
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facing similar structural pressures often behave very
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differently. It brings the state back in and.
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There's some key studies that showed this.
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Yes, work by scholars like Thomas Christensen and Jack
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Snyder was really important here.
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They looked at alliance behavior before World War One and World
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War 2 and found fascinating differences despite similar
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structural conditions. OK, what were the key
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differences they found? Well, before World War One,
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under conditions of multipolarity with several great
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powers, the European system suffered badly from chain gang.
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Chain gang, Yeah, allies were excessively dependent on each
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other, could have rigidly locked into their alliance commitments.
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So when a crisis erupted, like Austria Hungary's dispute with
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Serbia, allies got recklessly dragged in.
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Austria Hungary dragged Germany in.
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Russia mobilized supporting Serbia.
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France followed Russia. They were chained together by
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these tight security guarantees that actually removed strategic
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flexibility. 1 spark ignited the whole chain.
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OK, so too tight, too automatic, and before World War 2 under
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similar multipolar conditions against Nazi Germany.
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They found basically the opposite pathology.
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Buck passing became rampant. The other extreme?
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Exactly. Britain and France, facing a
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clearly revisionist Germany under Hitler, repeatedly
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hesitated to form a firm early counter coalition.
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They kept hoping someone else, maybe the Soviet Union, maybe
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even Italy, would step up and bear the main cost of
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confronting Germany. This was the era of appeasement,
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of strategic delay, of passing the buck until it was almost too
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late. Wow, so you had similar systemic
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conditions, multipolarity, a rising aggressive threat, but
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completely opposite and ultimately disastrous alliance
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behaviors? And NCR explains this divergent
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by bringing in those unit level factors that Waltz deliberately
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excluded. Things like geography.
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Are you close to the threat technology?
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Does offense or defense have the advantage and crucially, leader
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perception and domestic politics?
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So like whether the public or political elites were willing to
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pay the costs of arming and fighting?
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Precisely domestic political consensus, the ideology of the
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leadership, the health of the economy.
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These internal factors heavily influenced whether a state felt
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it could afford to chain gang or whether political leaders
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preferred the cheaper, though ultimately riskier, strategy of
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buck passing. Neoclassical realism essentially
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makes realism a much more powerful, nuanced theory of
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actual foreign policy, not just abstract international
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structure. OK, so if we take this more
21:31
advanced new classical realist framework and we apply it to
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maybe the defining geopolitical challenge of our time, the
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rivalry between the US and China, it immediately brings up
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that famous phrase, the Thucydides trap.
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Yes, Graham Allison really popularized this concept,
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drawing on the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and
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Ancient Greece. And the core idea, the famous
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quote is. It was the rise of Athens and
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the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.
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It's a classic structural argument, really, right?
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When a rapidly rising power threatens to displace and
22:03
establish ruling power, the structural stress becomes so
22:07
intense that war becomes the highly probable, maybe even
22:11
unavoidable, outcome. And Allison's research found
22:13
this pattern repeated throughout history.
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His team looked at 16 cases since the year 1500 where a
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rising power challenge to ruling power and they found that in 12
22:23
of those 16 cases that 75% the result was war.
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Wow, that's pretty terrifying statistic.
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It really suggests that structure.
22:31
The sheer weight of power shifts might just override agency and
22:34
make conflict almost predetermined it.
22:36
Certainly paints A grim picture based on historical precedent,
22:39
but the neoclassical lens bringing agency and perception
22:42
back in really complicates this idea of structural
22:45
inevitability. How so?
22:47
What's the critique? Well, the critical neoclassical
22:50
perspective argues that Allison's framing, while
22:52
powerful, often overlooks A crucial factor.
22:56
It wasn't just the rise of the challenging power that led to
22:58
war. In most of those historical
23:00
cases, it was the adoption of revisionist policies by one or
23:04
both sides. Revisionist policies meaning
23:07
conscious strategic choices by leaders to try and change the
23:11
existing order, not just getting bigger and stronger.
23:14
Exactly. Let's go back to the Athens
23:16
Sparta example. The neoclassical critique would
23:18
say look closer when Athens was already at its peak, powerful
23:22
and wealthy, it didn't just sit still, it began using its power
23:26
for hegemonic ambitions. It started expanding its
23:29
influence, aggressively building an empire, putting pressure on
23:32
neutral states, interfering with Spartan allies.
23:35
Sparta wasn't just fearful of Athens is growing capabilities,
23:38
he was reacting directly to Athens aggressive use of those
23:41
capabilities. The rising power, through its
23:43
deliberate policies, became the revisionist actor trying to
23:46
overturn the status quo. I see.
23:48
So the distinction isn't just having power, it's how you use
23:52
it, whether you use it to maintain the existing system or
23:55
try to change it in your favor. Precisely.
23:58
And that crucial distinction between simply rising and
24:01
actively pursuing revisionist goals leads to this really
24:04
interesting critical concept called the inverted Thucydides
24:08
trap. Inverted.
24:09
How does that work? This is a major challenge to the
24:12
dominant narrative, which usually paints China as the
24:14
rising revisionist threat. The inverted trap suggests that
24:19
the structural stress in danger today might not be primarily
24:22
caused by the rising power China trying to displace the US.
24:27
Instead, it argues, the stress might be caused by the ruling
24:29
power, the US, actively resisting China's rise and
24:33
trying to establish or maintain its own hegemony over China and
24:36
the region. It flips the script on who the
24:39
primary revisionist actor might actually be.
24:41
So this perspective suggests the US is the one trying to change
24:45
the status quo. But how does the theory justify
24:47
calling the ruling power the US revisionist?
24:49
I mean, doesn't the US generally see itself as defending the
24:52
existing liberal international order?
24:54
That's exactly the core of the debate.
24:56
The justification for calling the US revisionist from this
25:00
critical perspective lies in analyzing specific US policies
25:05
as they are perceived by rivals like China.
25:08
The argument is that the US is pursuing a grand strategy of
25:11
liberal hegemony, which inherently involves trying to
25:14
change the status quo of other states.
25:16
OK, what? Kind of actions are cited as
25:18
evidence for that. Well, the source material
25:20
highlights three key types of actions.
25:22
First, persistent efforts to change the domestic regimes or
25:26
the fundamental foreign policy orientations of adversaries.
25:29
From Beijing's perspective, things like promoting democracy
25:31
abroad or criticizing China's internal affairs are seen as
25:34
destabilizing interference aimed at undermining their system.
25:37
Right, regime change or interference.
25:39
What's the second point? Second, what rivals proceed as
25:42
systematic violation of international rules,
25:44
particularly economic ones? While the US sees itself as
25:47
upholding a rules based order, rivals point to actions like the
25:50
trade wars initiated under Trump, extensive use of
25:53
unilateral sanctions or technology, export controls
25:56
targeting specific countries as violations of the very global
25:59
economic rules like WTO norms that the US itself helped
26:03
establish. OK.
26:05
And the third action? Third is the perceived expansion
26:08
of US influence, particularly military and diplomatic
26:11
influence, in Asia, aimed at containing or encircling China.
26:15
So things like the Quad, US, Japan, India, Australia,
26:20
Australia, UK, US submarine deal.
26:22
Exactly from Beijing's viewpoint, establishing new
26:26
security partnerships around its periphery.
26:28
Deploying advanced missile systems and allied nations
26:31
nearby. Conducting robust freedom of
26:33
navigation operations close to contested waters, These aren't
26:36
seen as purely defensive measures stabilizing the region.
26:38
They're perceived as part of an aggressive strategic
26:40
encirclement designed to hem China in, stun its growth or
26:44
perhaps even provoke a confrontation on US terms.
26:46
It sounds like a classic example of that security dilemma spiral
26:50
We'll probably talk more about. What one side genuinely sees as
26:54
defense, the other inevitably sees as a menace.
26:57
It absolutely feeds into that dynamic.
26:59
So, given this diagnosis that US liberal hegemony is potentially
27:03
the revisionist driver, what does this neoclassical
27:07
perspective advise Washington to do to avoid the trap, inverted
27:11
or otherwise? Yeah, what's the prescription?
27:13
The argument is that the surest way to reduce friction and
27:16
prevent structural conflict is for Washington to consciously
27:19
shift away from this perceived revisionist strategy of liberal
27:23
hegemony and adopt A more restrained status quo strategy
27:27
of offshore balancing. Offshore balancing.
27:30
What does that actually look like in practice?
27:31
Less intervention. Essentially, yes.
27:33
It's a much more cost saving, threat minimizing form of
27:36
realism. It means the US would
27:38
significantly reduce its forward deployed military presence,
27:41
particularly ground troops in regions like Europe, the Middle
27:44
East, and Asia. It would stop actively trying to
27:46
promote democracy or change regimes abroad.
27:50
It would transfer the primary responsibility for maintaining
27:52
regional stability back onto the local powers themselves. the US
27:57
would only intervene militarily if the local ballots broke down
28:00
completely and a single power threatened to achieve actual
28:03
hegemony over a critical region like Europe or East Asia.
28:07
Otherwise, stay offshore. That sounds like a huge shift.
28:10
It would require abandoning that whole post Cold War idea of
28:14
American exceptionalism, the indispensable nation that has to
28:18
manage the world order. Absolutely.
28:20
The structural shift requires A profound unit level change in
28:23
perception and political will within the US.
28:26
Interestingly, the source material we looked at mentioned
28:29
a hypothetical future scenario, former US Secretary of State
28:32
Marco Rubio in early 2025 declaring that multipolarity,
28:36
the existence of multiple great powers, wasn't just inevitable,
28:39
but actually a preference for the administration.
28:41
Now whether that happens or not is another story, but moving
28:44
from demanding continued American dominance to actively
28:48
preferring a managed multipolar world?
28:51
Is that the essence of the shift or the status quo offshore
28:54
balancing strategy aimed at minimizing friction and avoiding
28:58
the vicinities trap, however you frame it?
29:00
So whether a state ultimately chooses offshore balancing, or
29:04
sticks with liberal hegemony, or something else, at the end of
29:07
the day someone, some group of humans, has to interpret those
29:11
structural pressures, decide on the strategy, and execute the
29:14
plan. Which brings us right back full
29:17
circle to the crucial importance of the unit level, and
29:20
specifically how flawed human perception can distort reality
29:24
and drive policy off the rails. This is really where even the
29:26
most diehard structural realists have to concede ground to agency
29:30
in psychology. I mean even a staunch near
29:33
realist like John Mearsheimer, when he analyzes specific
29:36
crises, take his analysis of the origins of the Russia Ukraine
29:39
war for instance, he has to invoke unit level factors.
29:42
Structural arguments can explain why Russia might have felt
29:45
threatened by NATO expansion or why it had the relative power
29:48
capabilities to potentially attack.
29:51
But to explain why they actually chose to launch a full scale
29:54
invasion when they did, he has to resort to talking about
29:57
things like Russia's willingness to use force, its determination,
30:01
its specific fears about Ukraine's trajectory, the
30:04
leadership's calculations, and risk tolerance.
30:06
Those are all unit level factors.
30:08
Right, so the structure might load the gun, but psychology
30:12
pulls the trigger. That's one way to think about
30:14
it. The structural forces create the
30:16
menu of options, maybe highlight the dangers, But human
30:19
psychology often determines the final order.
30:22
And Robert Jervis, his work was absolutely Seminole in exploring
30:26
the psychological dimension of international conflict.
30:28
Jervis, right? He gave us those two competing
30:31
models for how policymakers view adversaries, didn't he?
30:34
The deterrence model versus the spiral model.
30:36
Exactly. They're like two different sets
30:38
of glasses for interpreting the same actions.
30:41
The deterrence model basically assumes your adversary is
30:44
inherently greedy or aggressive. Like maybe Hitler's the classic
30:47
example. They're driven by an appetite
30:49
for gain, and they'll keep pushing until they meet firm
30:52
resistance. So in that model, you must be
30:55
firm. Threats and military readiness
30:58
are what keep the peace. Correct threats resolve, and
31:01
visible capabilities are necessary to deter their
31:04
aggression. The main worry if you're using
31:07
this model is that the aggressive actor might somehow
31:09
underestimate your resolve, think you're bluffing, and push
31:12
too far, triggering the conflict you tried to deter.
31:15
OK. That's deterrence, and the
31:17
alternative is the spiral model. The spiral model starts from a
31:21
completely different assumption. It assumes the adversary is not
31:24
inherently aggressive, but is actually driven primarily by
31:28
insecurity or fear, the classic security dilemma we mentioned.
31:32
Right. They're just trying to ensure
31:33
their own safety in an anarchic world.
31:35
Precisely so in this scenario, if you meet their actions which
31:39
they see is defensive with firmness, threats and military
31:43
build UPS, you don't deter them, you just confirm their fears.
31:47
You make them more insecure, leading them to react
31:49
defensively, which you then interpret as aggression, and you
31:52
get this vicious spiral of hostility.
31:55
So the big worry in the spiral model is misinterpretation
31:58
leading to unnecessary conflict. Exactly.
32:01
The worry is that each side will consistently overestimate the
32:04
hostility and malign intent of the other, leading to the self
32:07
fulfilling prophecies where defensive actions provoke
32:10
counter actions that ultimately make war more likely, even if
32:14
neither side originally wanted it.
32:15
What's so fascinating and scary is that the exact same action,
32:19
like deploying more troops to a border, could be seen as a
32:22
perfectly sensible stabilizing necessity if you're wearing the
32:25
deterrence glasses, or a catastrophic, dangerously
32:28
escalatory move if you're wearing the spiral glasses.
32:31
Absolutely, And Jervis's crucial contribution was showing that
32:35
policymakers aren't just randomly choosing which glasses
32:37
to wear. They suffer from systematic
32:39
routine, cognitive biases, mental shortcuts, and
32:43
distortions that make misjudgment and misperception
32:46
incredibly likely, often pushing them towards the more dangerous
32:49
interpretations. OK, let's.
32:50
Unpack some of those key misperceptions he identified,
32:53
the ones that really derail policy.
32:55
What's the first big one? One major one is the tendency
32:59
towards seeing centralization or Machiavellianism in the other
33:03
side's action. Centralization.
33:05
Meaning policy makers tend to overestimate how unified,
33:08
coordinated and centrally controlled the other
33:10
government's policies actually are.
33:12
They tend to see disparate events, maybe even accidents or
33:15
bureaucratic foul UPS, as all part of a single well thought
33:19
out, often malicious grand plan. Right, they prefer to assume a
33:23
clever enemy rather than just chaos or incompetence.
33:26
Like Einstein's quote you mentioned got a subtle but he is
33:28
not malicious. Exactly.
33:30
It's often psychologically easier to believe you're facing
33:33
a cunning, unified adversary than to accept that events might
33:37
be random, decentralized, or driven by internal bureaucratic
33:40
politics you don't understand. That's dangerous for diplomacy,
33:43
I imagine. Hugely dangerous.
33:45
Jervis gives examples like during the Vietnam War, there
33:47
was a period in late 1966 where US bombing raids near Hanoi and
33:52
Haifong practically stopped for a while, mainly due to
33:55
unexpectedly terrible weather. OK.
33:58
But some N Vietnamese leaders reportedly interpreted this
34:01
pause not as luck or weather, but as a deliberate, coordinated
34:06
signal from the highest levels in Washington that the US was
34:10
ready for peace talks. They couldn't fathom it was just
34:13
bad weather. They assumed centralized intent
34:16
that. Reminds me of another historical
34:17
example you brought up earlier, California banning Japanese land
34:20
ownership in 1913. An excellent parallel, yes.
34:23
The Japanese government at the time simply couldn't believe
34:25
that the US federal government in Washington was truly
34:28
powerless to just override a state law like that, right?
34:31
They were utterly convinced it had to be a deliberate, unified
34:34
insult directed from the very top of American policy making
34:38
circles. They completely misread the
34:40
decentralized nature of the US federal system and attributed
34:44
far too much centralization and hostile intent to Washington.
34:48
OK, so overestimating the other side's coherence and malice,
34:52
what's the second major misperception?
34:54
This one feeds the security dilemma directly.
34:57
It's the pervasive belief in one's own benign intentions and
35:00
the failure to see how others perceive you, though.
35:03
We're the good guys, bias. Pretty much Statesman and the
35:06
states they lead almost universally assume that their
35:09
own policies are obviously peaceful, defensive, or at worst
35:13
reactive, and they assume the adversary must understand this
35:16
benign intent. They fail to grasp that their
35:19
own actions, like building up arms, forming alliances, moving
35:22
troops, will inevitably be perceived as threatening and
35:25
potentially aggressive by the adversary, regardless of their
35:28
own intentions. So if I build a massive wall
35:30
around my property, I know it's just for my security, but my
35:33
neighbor inevitably sees it as a hostile barrier aimed at them.
35:36
Exactly that dynamic. The memorable phrase that
35:39
captures it perfectly is what one state regards as insurance
35:43
the adversary will inevitably see as encirclement.
35:46
That's powerful. If you genuinely believe you're
35:49
building a fleet of long range bombers purely for defensive
35:52
deterrence to prevent attack, your rival is almost certain to
35:56
see them as offensive first strike weapons designed to
35:59
destroy their assets before they can be used.
36:02
Which of course, fuels their own military buildup in response,
36:06
creating the spiral. OK.
36:08
And the third key bias. This one is about learning the
36:10
wrong lessons from interactions. It's self attribution bias,
36:15
particularly regarding success. Self attribution bias?
36:18
How does that skew strategy? Basically, actors, individuals,
36:22
and states tend to attribute successful outcomes primarily to
36:26
their own efforts, especially their own firmness or toughness.
36:29
If you issue a harsh threat or impose sanctions and the
36:32
adversary backs down or makes a concession, you're highly likely
36:35
to conclude, aha, my firmness worked.
36:37
They only understand pressure. Right, you give yourself all the
36:40
credit. You do you tend to downplay or
36:42
ignore other potential reasons for the adversary's concession.
36:46
Maybe they had internal problems.
36:47
Maybe they reassess their own interest.
36:49
Maybe they were trying to be conciliatory for other reasons,
36:52
but you conclude your pressure was the key factor.
36:54
And the long term danger of learning that lesson over and
36:57
over. It heavily reinforces a reliance
37:00
on negative sanctions, threats and coercion.
37:03
It makes policymakers less likely to explore diplomacy,
37:06
positive incentives or rewarding concessions in the future
37:09
because they become convinced only toughness works.
37:12
They feel effective. They feel validated when their
37:14
perceived firmness seems to succeed, but this cognitive bias
37:18
dramatically increases the chances of them overreaching
37:21
later on. They overestimate their ability
37:23
to coerce the adversary, underestimate the adversary's
37:26
own resolve or constraints, and push too hard, leading to
37:30
unnecessary breakdowns in negotiations, crises, and
37:33
potentially escalating conflict. So wow, even if the big
37:37
structural conditions, anarchy, power shifts make conflict
37:40
likely, human psychology through these systematic biases almost
37:45
guarantees will misread the signals, misinterpret intentions
37:49
and stumble towards confrontation even faster.
37:52
It's a sobering combination, isn't it?
37:53
Structure creates the pressures, but psychology often ensures we
37:57
react to those pressures in the most dangerous ways.
38:00
Hashtag #outro. So, our deep dive today?
38:03
Really, following the threads laid out in Diplomacy and
38:06
International Relations by Bastian Freiborg, I think it's
38:09
shown that realism isn't some static monolith, it's a
38:12
constantly evolving framework. Yeah, definitely.
38:14
We started way back with Morgenthau's focus on that
38:17
flawed power seeking human nature, then moved to Waltz's
38:21
stark, almost deterministic focus on the structure of
38:23
anarchy, and finally landed with neoclassical realism, which kind
38:27
of forces us really to synthesize the two, to bring
38:30
structure and agency back together.
38:32
That's. Exactly.
38:34
The best understanding, arguably, of the complex world
38:37
we face in the 21st century requires both perspectives.
38:41
We have to accept the reality of structural pressures, things
38:44
like the distribution of power, the security dilemma, maybe even
38:47
the Thu cities trap dynamics. Right, those big forces.
38:50
But we also have to acknowledge always that those pressures are
38:54
filtered through the unit level, through the specific domestic
38:57
politics of places like Washington and Beijing, through
39:01
the perceptions and misperceptions of the actual
39:04
human leaders making the decisions.
39:06
So the structural forces might push us toward conflict.
39:09
They often do. Yet the historical success,
39:12
however brief sometimes, of moments like the Concert of
39:14
Europe, which was founded on conscious prudence, norms,
39:17
active diplomatic effort that suggests human agency
39:20
statecraft, when exercised wisely, can provide a
39:23
counterbalance. It can potentially steer away
39:25
from structural inevitability. Perhaps it offers a glimmer of
39:28
hope. Maybe.
39:29
Which leaves you our with the ultimate provocative thought to
39:33
chew on from today's discussion. Given these intense structural
39:37
pressures of great power rivalry, compounded by the
39:40
constant threat of psychological misperception, where we
39:43
systematically assume malice over accident, and where others
39:47
inevitably see our insurance as their encirclement, is peace in
39:51
this century going to be decided mainly by objective military and
39:54
economic capabilities? Or will it hinge more on the
39:57
quality of leadership, on the ability of statesman and
40:00
societies to recognize and overcome these inherent
40:03
psychological traps and structural biases?
40:06
That is the crucial question, isn't it?
40:07
And that's what we leave you to Mull over.
40:10
Thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive into the
40:12
evolution of realism. We really hope you found this
40:15
exploration insightful, maybe clarifying.
40:18
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40:20
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40:30
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40:33
We'll catch you on the next deep dive.