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The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

by John Mearsheimer

  1. People / Organizations:

    • Jacob Viner - Political Economist (pg. 46)

    • Paul Nitze - U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense

    • Dean Acheson - Secretary of State

    • Julian Corbett - Naval Strategist (pg. 86)

    • Robert Pape - Political Scientist (pg. 108)

    • Paul Halpern - Naval Historian (pg. 118)

    • Jack Snyder - Political Scientist

    • Nobutaka Ike - Political Scientist

    • Mark Peattie - Military Historian

    • E. H. Norman - Canadian Diplomat

    • Ishiwara Kanji - Japanese General

    • Richard Debo

    • Richard Bosworth - Historian

    • Maxwell Macartney

    • Paul Cremona

    • Kenneth Waltz - Political Scientist

    • Karl Deutsch - Political Scientist

    • J. David Singer - Political Scientist

    • Hans Morgenthau - Political Scientist

    • Robert Gilpin - Political Scientist

    • A. F. K. Organski - Political Scientist

  2. Quotes:

    • "The overriding goal of each State is to maximize its share of world power. Their ultimate aim to the be the hegemon - that is, the only great power in the system." (pg. 2)

    • "The best defense is a good offense." (pg. 36)

    • "Potential adversaries have incentives to misrepresent their own strength or weakness, and to conceal their true aims. " (pg. 38)

    • "The total direct cost of WWI (1914-1918) for all of the participants was about $200 Billion. The U.S. alone spent roughly $306 Billion fighting the axis powers between 1941 and 1945 - roughly three times its GNP in 1940." (pg. 61)

    • "A ship's a fool to fight a fort." - Horatio Nelson (pg. 89)

    • "Diplomacy is an uncertain process." (pg. 342)

    • "We must rely on theory because many aspects of the future are unknown." (pg. 361)

    • "The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all." - Thomas Hobbes (pg. 361)

  3. General Notes:

    • Author's Hypothesis:

      • "The structure of the international system, not the particular characteristics of individual great powers, causes them [Great Powers] to think and act offensively and to seek hegemony. I assume that the principle motive behind great power behavior is survival. In anarchy, the desire to survive encourages states to act aggressively." (pg. 53) "the most powerful states are those that possess the most formidable land forces." (pg. 56) In the view of offensive realism, the basic structure of the international system forces states concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of each great power is to maximize its share of world power. Thus, if China continues to grow economically, it will attempt to dominate Asia and the U.S. will go to great lengths to prevent China from achieving regional hegemony (pg. 361-362)

    • "Three features in the international system combine to cause states to fear one another:" (pg. 3)

      • The absence of a central authority that sits above states and can protect them from each other;

      • The fact that states always have some offensive military capability;

      • The fact that states can never be certain about other states' intentions.

    • Offensive Realism (pg. 4)

      • "The fortunes of all states - great powers and small powers alike - are determined primarily by the decisions and actions of those with the greatest capability." (pg. 5)

      • "Great power are determined largely on the basis of their relative military capability." (pg. 5)

      • "[It is] mainly a descriptive theory: It explains how great powers have behaved in the past and how they are likely to behave in the future." (pg. 11)

    • Defensive Realist

      • They argue that conquest rarely pays (pg. 210)

      • Expanders vs Over-expanders (pg. 210)

        • Expanders are smart aggressors who win wars, but who also can see the writing on the wall when defeat looms overhead.

        • Over-expanders are the irrational aggressors (pg. 211)

    • 6 Key Questions on Power (pg. 12)

      • Why do great powers want power?

        • What's the underlying logic that explains why states compete for it?

      • How much power do states want?

      • What is power?

      • What strategies do states pursue to gain power?

      • What are the causes of war?

        • "what power related factors make it more or less likely that security competition will intensify and turn into open conflict?" (pg. 13)

      • When do threatened great powers balance against a dangerous adversary and when do they attempt to pass the buck to another threatened state?

    • Liberalism & Realism (pg. 14)

      • Liberalism

        • "intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place." (pg. 15)

        • 3 Core Beliefs: (pg. 15)

          • They consider states to be the main actors in international politics.

          • They emphasize that the internal characteristics of states vary considerably, and that these differences have profound effects on state behavior.

          • They believe that calculations of power matter little when explaining the behavior of good states.

        • They argue that a high level of economic interdependence among states make them unlikely to fight each other.

        • Democratic Peace Theory (pg. 16)

          • Democracies don’t go to war against other democracies; thus, a world containing only democratic states is a world without war.

        • They argue that international institutions enhance the prospects for cooperation among states.

      • Realism

        • 3 Core Beliefs: (pg. 17)

          • They consider states to be the main actors in international politics; however, they focus more on great powers.

          • The behavior of great powers is influenced mainly by the external environment.

          • Calculation of power dominates states' thinking, and that states compete for power among themselves.

        • "it makes good sense for states to selfishly pursue power." (pg. 22)

    • 5 Key Assumptions on the Struggle for Power (pg. 31)

      • The international system is anarchic.

        • There is no central authority ruling over the multitude of independent states in an international system.

      • Great powers inherently posses some offensive military capability, which gives them the ability to hurt each other.

      • States can never be certain about other states' intentions.

      • Survival is the primary goal of great powers.

      • Great powers are rational agents.

    • Security Dilemma - "the measures a state takes to increase its own security usually decreases the security of another." (pg. 36)

    • Relative Power vs. Absolute Power Seekers (pg. 36)

      • Relative Power seekers are keen to achieving the outcome in which power-gains are proportionally larger in their favor than their competing states. Conversely, Absolute Power seekers are focused on achieving any and all gains, even if the consequences for gains in a power struggle/agreement are proportionally in favor of a rival state agent.

      • "A state's potential power is based on the size of its population and the level of its wealth." (pg. 43)

      • "The more power a state possesses, the more fear it generates among its rivals." (pg. 43)

      • "A state's actual power is embedded mainly in its army and the air and naval forces that directly support it. Armies are the central ingredient of military power." (pg. 43)

    • Wealth & Power (chapter 3)

      • "States have two kinds of power: latent power and military power." (pg. 55)

        • "Latent power refers to the socio-economic ingredients that go into building military power; it is largely based on a states wealth and the overall size of its population." (pg. 55) "Latent power constitutes the societal resources that a state has available to build military forces." (pg. 60)

      • Military Power

        • Sea, Air, Land, & Nuclear (pg. 83)

        • The author makes the argument that Land Power is the most important stating that "these air and naval missions, however, are directly assisting the army, not acting independently of it….It's hard to destroy an enemies economy solely by blockading or bombing it." (pg. 86) "blockading navies and strategic bombing cannot produce quick and decisive victories in wars between great powers. They are useful, mainly, for fighting lengthy wars of attrition. States rarely go to war unless they think that rapid success if likely." (pg. 87). Ultimately, the author purports the idea that navies which "command the sea's" still lack the ability to project power on land for decisive victories against the enemy.

          • My question, then, focuses on 2 elements of this idea:

            • What does it mean to project power against an enemy?

            • Is it truly unmanageable for a navy to exert such influence in the seas, through tactics and strategies, that it cannot ultimately dissuade the enemy from continued efforts? (how does terrain dictate this philosophy? What naval wars can support or negate this idea?)

        • "the most powerful state's possess the most formidable armies." (pg. 83)

        • "large bodies of water profoundly limit the power-projection capabilities of land forces." (pg. 83)

        • Sea Power

          • "Navies can perform 3 power-projection missions where they are directly supporting the army, and not acting independently." (pg. 88)

            • Amphibious Assaults

            • Amphibious Landings

            • Troop Transport

          • 2 Tactical means of projecting power:

            • Naval Bombardments; otherwise referred to as "pinprick warfare" (pg. 89)

            • Blockade; restricting enemy lines of communication and attempting to deny enemy sea-trade. (pg. 89)

          • Author's Key Questions:

            • Is there evidence that blockades alone can coerce an enemy into surrendering?

            • Can blockades contribute importantly to victory by ground armies?

            • Is the influence of blockades on the final outcomes of wars likely to be decisive or marginal?

          • Case Examples (pg. 90)

        • Air Power

          • "once an air force controls the skies, it can pursue 3 power-projection missions in support of ground forces:" (pg. 97)

            • Close Air Support

            • Interdiction

              • "strikes at the enemy's rear areas to destroy or delay the movement of enemy supplies and troops to the front lines." (pg. 97) Target can consist of supply depots, reserve units, long range artillery, and lines of communication.

            • Air Lift

          • "strategic bombing alone cannot coerce an enemy into surrendering." (pg. 106)

        • Nuclear Power (pg. 128)

        • Technological Change & Maneuver (pg. 115-116)

          • Ships -> Steam-Driven Navies -> Railroads -> Mechanized Vehicles -> Airplanes -> Submarines -> Naval Mines.

          • Before the 1850's, navies were considerably more mobile than armies who had to negotiate considerable obstacles such as mountains, forests, swamps, and desert. Navies that commanded the seas, however, could move swiftly on a rival's coast well before the land-based army could get there. However, despite the relative ease of landing troops, navies weren't capable of putting large forces ashore and supporting them for a sustained period, which gave the defending army the advantage of numbers. The advent of steam-driven navies altered the capacity of carrying troops and speed of maneuver on the seas, which then gave the invading army an added advantage against land-based armies. Then, during the mid-nineteenth century, railroads began to sprawl throughout Europe, which played an important role in German Unification during the 1860's. Railroads increased a land-based armies' ability to contend an invading navy as the defending army could concentrate force more readily and being able to support large formation from the rear.

    • Data Resources

    • Strategies for Survival (Chapter 4)

      • "War is the main strategy states employ to acquire relative power. Blackmail is a more attractive strategy because it relies on the threat of force, not the actual use of force, to produce results." (pg. 138)

      • Bait and Bleed - a state tries to weaken its rivals by provoking a long and costly war.

      • Bloodletting - a state takes measure to ensure that any war in which an adversary is involved is protracted and deadly.

      • Balancing & Buck-Passing - strategies that great powers use to prevent aggressors from upsetting the balance of power.

        • Balancing - threatened states commit themselves to containing their dangerous opponent.

        • Buck-Passing - a state tries to get another great power to check the aggressor while they remain on the sidelines.

          • "Between 1864 and 1870, the U.K. and Russia stood by and allowed Otto von Bismarck's Prussia to conquer considerable territory in the heart of Europe. The U.K. reasoned that a united Germany would not only deter French and Russian expansion in Europe, but would divert their attention away from Africa and Asia." (pg. 159)

        • "a threatened great power operating in a bipolar system must balance against its rival because there is no other great power to catch the buck. The amount of buck-passing largely depends upon the magnitude of the threat and on geography." (pg. 267)

        • "the crucial issue regarding geography is whether the threatened state shares a border with the aggressor, or whether a barrier separates the two. Common borders promote balancing; barriers encourage buck-passing." (pg. 271)

      • Appeasement & Bandwagoning - both call for conceding power to a rival state in an attempt to alter the aggressor's behavior. However, these strategies violate the offensive realism axiom whereby states maximize relative power.

      • State Goals: (pg. 140)

        • Seek Regional Hegemony & Maximize Security

        • Maximize Wealth

        • Dominate the Balance of Land Power

        • Nuclear Superiority Against Potential Rivals

    • Great Powers in Action (Chapter 6)

      • The author attempts to analyze foreign policy behavior to support the concept of offensive realism with 5 dominant Great Powers within the past 150 years:

        • Japan from the Meiji Restoration to WWII (pg. 172)

          • "Japan was principally concerned with controlling 3 areas: Korea, Manchuria, and China." (pg. 174)

          • "In the first few decades after the Meiji Restoration, Japanese foreign policy focused on Korea." (pg. 176)

          • "Nevertheless, China still considered Korea its vassal state, which led to rivalry between China and Japan over Korea. In the summer of 1894 another crisis broke out." (pg. 177)

          • April 17, 1895 - Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed (pg. 177) [Treaty of Shimonoseki, 1895 | US-China Institute (usc.edu)]

            • China ceded the Liaodong Peninsula, Formosa, and Pescadores to Japan.

          • "Russia, France, and Germany decide to rectify the situation; they forced Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China" (pg. 177)

          • Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

          • September 18, 1931 - The Mukden Incident (pg. 180)

            • Established Manchuria as a Japanese colony

        • Germany from Bismarck to WWII (pg. 181)

          • "security was always a burning issue for Germany because of geography: it is located in the center of Europe with few natural defensive barriers on either its eastern or western flank, which makes it vulnerable to invasion." (pg. 181)

          • "France and Russia were Germany's two principle rivals between 1862 and 1945" (pg. 182)

          • January 18, 1871 - Bismarck becomes Chancellor of Germany (pg. 183)

          • June 13, 1887 - Reinsurance Treaty (pg. 184)

          • March 20, 1890 - Kaiser Wilhelm fires Bismarck as Chancellor (pg. 183)

          • Europe in 1914 [The National Archives | Exhibitions & Learning online | First World War]

          • "the main driving force behind the creation of the Triple Entente was Germany's growing economic and military might, not its aggressive behavior." (pg. 213)

          • "The Moroccan Crisis of 1905 certainly played and important role in the establishment of the Triple Entente between 1905 and 1907. The main factor behind the U.K.'s decision to form the three-pronged alliance was Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. Russia was effectively knocked out of the European balance of power, which meant a [relative] improvement in Germany's power position." (pg. 215)

        • Soviet Union from the Russian Revolution to the New Era (Dismemberment of the U.S.S.R. in 1991) (pg. 190)

          • "the Soviet Union sought to control Korea, Manchuria, the Kurile Islands, and the southern half of Sakhalin Island." (pg. 193)

          • March 15, 1918 - Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (pg. 193)

            • Lenin had to make serious concessions to Germany.

          • "a series of 5-years plans transformed the Soviet Union from a destitute great power into Europe's most powerful state by the end of WWII" (pg. 195)

        • Great Britain 1792 to WWII

        • United States from 1800 to 1990 (pg. 238)

          • "The United States pursued two closely linked policies in the nineteenth century: 1) expanding across North America and building the most powerful state in the Western Hemisphere, a policy known as the 'Manifest Destiny', and 2) minimizing the influence of the U.K. and other European powers, a policy known as the 'Monroe Doctrine'" (pg. 239)

            • Manifest Destiny (pg. 242)

              • "the United States expanded westward across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. focused on consolidating gains and creating a rich and cohesive state through 5 major steps  between 1800 and 1850." (pg. 242)

                • The Louisiana Purchase

                • Acquisition of Florida

                • Texas Independence from Mexico

                • Acquisition of Oregon

                • Acquisition of California

              • Consolidation Process

                • Fighting the Civil War

                • Displacing the Native Americans

                • Migration to the U.S. (see statistics on pg. 246 paragraph 2)

                • Building the Economy

            • Monroe Doctrine (pg. 247)

              • December 2, 1823 - President Monroe addresses Congress (pg. 247)

    • 4 International Security System Structures (pg. 337)

      • Unbalanced Bipolar - consists of 2 great powers of unequal strength (a potential hegemon exists).

      • Balanced Bipolar - consists of 2 great powers of roughly equal strength.

      • Unbalanced Multipolar - consists of 3 or more great powers of unequal strength (a potential hegemon exists).

      • Balanced Multipolar - consists of 3 or more great powers of roughly equal strength.

      • "War is more likely in multipolarity than bipolarity for three reasons: 1) there are naturally more opportunities for war; 2) imbalances of power are more commonplace in multipolar systems; and, 3) the potential for miscalculation is greater." (pg. 338)

      • "multipolar systems tend toward inequality, whereas bipolar systems tend towards equality. The more great powers there are in the system, the more likely it is that wealth and population size, the building blocks for military power, will be distributed unevenly." (pg. 341)

    • China? (Chapter 10)

      • In the view of offensive realism, the basic structure of the international system forces states concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of each great power is to maximize its share of world power. Thus, if China continues to grow economically, it will attempt to dominate Asia and the U.S. will go to great lengths to prevent China from achieving regional hegemony (pg. 361-362)

      • "Much as the U.S. pushed the European great powers out of the western hemisphere in the 19th century, we should expect China to devise its own version of the Monroe Doctrine." (pg. 371) China has pursued this strategy by making claims to the South China Sea.

      • "China has 6 outstanding territorial disputes. Probably China's most important dispute is over Taiwan. China [also] has ongoing disputes with Vietnam over the control of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, and with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Spratly Islands. [It also has] border disputes with Bhutan and India." (pg. 375)

      • "China might become embroiled in conflict with its neighbors over water. The Tibetan Plateau is the third-largest repository of freshwater in the world. It is also the main source of many of Asia's great rivers (Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Salween, Sutlej, Yangtze, and Yellow), most of which flow into neighboring countries." (pg. 376)

      • [The Potential for Tensions in South Asia: The Food and Water Vector - Future Directions International]

      • "Towards that end, China has built canals, dams, irrigation systems, and pipelines." (pg. 376)

      • "China, like the U.S., is almost certain to treat the Persian Gulf as a vital strategic interest, which means Beijing and Washington will eventually engage in serious security competition. The fact is that maritime transport [of oil] is a much easier and cheaper option [than by railroad of pipeline through Pakistan or Myanmar]. The only way for Chinese ships to move between [the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean] is to go through the Strait of Malacca, the Lombok Strait, or the Sunda Strait." (pg. 379)

      • "The optimal strategy for dealing with China is containment. It calls for the U.S. to concentrate on keeping Beijing from using its forces to conquer territory and expand influence." (pg. 384)

      • "The main problem [with slowing down the Chinese economy] is that there is no practical way [of doing so] without also damaging the American economy." (pg. 386)

      • "The key question is whether [China's neighbors] will join forces with the U.S. and balance against China, or bandwagon with a rising China?" (pg. 388) "One might argue that China has an ace in the hole that will allow it to force at least some of its neighbors not to balance with the U.S. [and that is the fact that] a number of Asian countries (Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) trade extensively with China and heavily invest there." (pg. 390)

      • "We should expect to see proxy wars, in which Chinese and American allies fight each other." (pg. 393)

      • "The Korean Peninsula is probably the only place where China and the U.S. might conceivably end up fighting a major conventional land war." (pg. 397)

    • Realpolitik vs. Weltpolitik vs. Machtpolitik

    • Costs of Warfare:

      • "The total direct cost of WWI (1914-1918) for all of the participants was about $200 Billion. The U.S. alone spent roughly $306 Billion fighting the axis powers between 1941 and 1945 - roughly three times its GNP in 1940." (pg. 61)

        • Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War, by Ernest Bogart (pg. 299)

        • The Pity of War, Niall Ferguson (pg. 322-323)

        • The Military Balance, 2000/2001, The International Institute for Strategic Services (see "The 2000 Chart of Armed Conflict")

        • The Oxford Companion to World War II, I.C.B. Dear (pg. 1059, 1182)

        • The Economics of World War II, Mark Harrison

      • "the Allied punishment campaign against German cities destroyed more than 40% of the urban area in Germany's seventy largest cities and killed roughly 305,000 civilians." (pg. 101)

        • The Soviet Defense Enigma: Estimating Costs and Burdens, by Carl Jacobsen (pg. 154-161)

      • "this deadly aerial campaign [against Japan during late 1944] destroyed more than 40% of Japan's 64 largest cities, killed approximately 785,000 civilians, and forced 8.5 million people to evacuate their homes." (pg. 102)

        • Khrushchev: A Political Life, by William Tompson (pg. 171)

  4. Further Readings:

    • Politics Among Nations, by Morgenthau

    • Theory of International Politics, by Kenneth Waltz

    • The Twenty Years' Crisis, George Kennan

    • American Diplomacy: 1900-1950, George Kennan

    • The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660-1783, by Admiral Thayer Mahan

    • The Command of the Air, by General Giulio Douhet

    • The Economics of Wartime Shortage, by Mancur Olson

    • The Soviet Defense Enigma: Estimating Costs and Burdens, by Carl Jacobsen

    • The Power to Divide: Wedge Strategies in Great Power Competition, by Timothy Crawford

    • Why Containment Works: Power, Proliferation, and Preventative War, by Wallace Thies

    • When Right Makes Might: Rising Powers and World Order, by Stacie Goddard

    • The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, by Oriana Mastro

    • American Pendulum: Recurring Debates in U.S. Grand Strategies, by Christopher Hemmer

    • Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy, by Kelly Greenhill

    • Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China: Power and Politics in East Asia, by Robert Ross

    • The Great Illusion, by Norman Angell

    • Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition, by Jack Snyder

    • The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914, Jack Snyder

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: Text

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