The War Ledger / Edition 1

by A. F. K. Organski, Jacek Kugler

Overview

The War Ledger provides fresh, sophisticated answers to fundamental questions about major modern wars: Why do major wars begin? What accounts for victory or defeat in war? How do victory and defeat influence the recovery of the combatants? Are the rules governing conflict behavior between nations the same since the advent of the nuclear era?

The authors find such well-known theories as the balance of power and collective security systems inadequate to explain how conflict erupts in the international system. Their rigorous empirical analysis proves that the power-transition theory, hinging on economic, social, and political growth, is more accurate; it is the differential rate of growth of the two most powerful nations in the system—the dominant nation and the challenger—that destabilizes all members and precipitates world wars.

Predictions of who will win or lose a war, the authors find, depend not only on the power potential of a nation but on the capability of its political systems to mobilize its resources—the "political capacity indicator." After examining the aftermath of major conflicts, the authors identify national growth as the determining factor in a nation's recovery. With victory, national capabilities may increase or decrease; with defeat, losses can be enormous. Unexpectedly, however, in less than two decades, losers make up for their losses and all combatants find themselves where they would have been had no war occurred.

Finally, the authors address the question of nuclear arsenals. They find that these arsenals do not make the difference that is usually assumed. Nuclear weapons have not changed the structure of power on which international politics rests. Nor does the behavior of participants in nuclear confrontation meet the expectations set out in deterrence theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226632803
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	08/15/1981
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	299
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

A. F. K. Organski is professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Jacek Kugler is professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. They are the coauthors, with J. Timothy Johnson and Youssef Cohen, of Births, Deaths, and Taxes: The Demographic and Political Transitions, also published by the University of Chicago Press.


A. F. K. Organski is professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Jacek Kugler is professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. They are the coauthors, with J. Timothy Johnson and Youssef Cohen, of Births, Deaths, and Taxes: The Demographic and Political Transitions, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Read an Excerpt

The War Ledger

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By A. F. K. Organski

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 1980 University of Chicago
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-63280-3

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CHAPTER 1

Causes, Beginnings and Predictions: The Power Transition

Despite the vast literature devoted to war, little is known on the subject that is of practical value. Theories about the origins of wars remain tentative. One need only recall the extraordinary exchange between German Chancellor von Bulow and his successor, in the early hours of World War I. "How did it happen?" asked von Bulow. "Ah, if we only knew," was the reply. John F. Kennedy, recounting this episode many times, expressed horror at it. He would know; he would do better. Yet, even as he voiced his dismay, he was taking those very steps that led to American intervention in Vietnam. The record of ignorance is depressing.

Our interest lies in explaining major wars. Theories about why wars begin are in a highly embryonic state. Attempts at solutions of the problem require the joining of information collected from two fundamental sources. In the first place, accurate observations are needed on the power possessed by all nations in the system. It has long been believed that the outbreak of major hostilities is connected to changes in the power structure of the international order. The core of this first argument is as follows: If one nation gains significantly in power, its improved position relative to that of other nations frightens them and induces them to try to reverse this gain by war. Or, vice versa, a nation gaining on an adversary will try to make its advantage permanent by reducing its opponent by force of arms. Either way, changes in power are considered causae belli.

It is also clear that "structural" changes can explain only a portion (though a critical portion) of the problem of why wars occur. What if the leaders of the nations affected do not perceive a threat in what has taken place and therefore do not choose to fight? There can be little doubt that some of the incendiary factors essential to the outbreak of wars are lodged in the culture of elites, their belief systems, their skill in negotiation, their ability to decipher signals from other leaders, as well as in the constraints and opportunities imposed on and provided for all elites by the institutions in which they must operate. Our second source of information on the beginnings of wars is, then, the process whereby elites elect either to go to war or to keep the peace.

It is difficult to say which of these two types of information is more important. Intelligence agencies quarrel endlessly over the question of whether estimates of an adversary's capacities are more important than information on the intentions of its leaders. Clearly, neither estimates of a country's changes in power nor of the pugnacity of its elites can alone account for the entire process that leads one nation to war against another. But, taken together, perhaps they may enable us to answer two fundamental questions of international politics: What causes major powers to enter into major wars? Can one reliably predict the approach of wars?

For a long time, three models have been deployed in an effort to relate specifically different distributions of power to the coming of war or the preservation of peace, and to tie such estimates to assumptions as to when and why elites choose to fight. These models will serve as points of departure for our own analysis. We shall first explore in what ways the distribution of power is linked with the beginning of war. Second, we shall examine the problem of how to index decisions by elites to fight a war. Third, we shall try to test the models to see which one is correct.

Three Models

The Balance of Power

One model, respectably ancient, has served specialists and practitioners of international relations for centuries. The balance-of-power model suggests that when power is more or less equally distributed among great powers or members of major alliances peace will ensue. Conversely, as large asymmetries become discernible in the distribution of power resources, the probability of war increases markedly. According to this theory, the country whose power is increasing will take advantage of its superior strength to attack its now weaker adversaries. Hence, the trinity of beliefs that constitutes the balance-of-power model: equality of power is conducive to peace; an imbalance of power leads to war; the stronger party is the likely aggressor.

This is how the power system is supposed to work: ... Given large numbers of nations with varying amounts of power each one striving to maximize its own power, there is a tendency of the entire system to be in balance. That is to say the various nations group themselves together in such a way that no single nation or group of nations is strong enough to overwhelm the others, for its power is balanced by that of some opposing group. As long as the balance can be maintained, there is peace and the independence of small nations is maintained.

The quotation adumbrates the central mechanism on which the balance of power operates in determining either international stability or the outbreak of war. It describes the nature of the motivating force that impels the actors to arrange themselves in such a way that a balance of power may result, and it explains why at least a roughly equal distribution of power is necessary in order to keep the peace.

Just as theoretical economists explain the behavior of "economic man" as motivated by a desire to maximize his profits, so specialists in international politics who accept the balance-of-power model postulate the political motives of nations as motivated by their desire to maximize their power. The motive purportedly inspiring all actors in the system to behave as they do also implies the fundamental rule governing all decisions in the field of foreign policy. Since nations that have an advantage will maximize their power positions by attacking the weak, these weaker nations, in turn, will gain strength by allying themselves with other countries in comparable positions. All nations, of course, can also increase their strength by breaking up the alliances of their opponents, or even by fighting in order to protect the distribution of power that, in the long run, will protect their well-being and their existence.

It should be clear that the major mechanism through which the balance-of-power system is maintained is the making and unmaking of alliances. The reason for this dependence on coalitions in order to change the distribution of power is that the power resources of each member of the system are viewed as inelastic. There is no way a nation can increase its own strength very much except by adding its allies' strength to its own, or by decreasing its adversaries' strength by separating it, through persuasion, bribery, or subversion, from its allies.

Finally, the cited passage discloses why it is that the "balance" must represent an equal distribution of power. Proponents of the balance-of-power system often fudge on the question of what kind of power distribution is necessary to assure the security of all its members. Some writers have made the point that by a "balance" one means simply an equilibrium, and that such a state can result from almost any distribution of power. But this, of course, contradicts the first commandment of the system, that all nations will try to maximize their power. Any gain of a decisive advantage by one nation or faction will represent the beginning of the pyramiding of power by the stronger until its hegemony is established or until, somehow, its power is matched by the equal power of its opponents.

One feature of the balance-of-power system needs additional comment: the system is homeostatic. Indeed, it is ultrastable. In maximizing their own power positions, nations group themselves in the kind of balances that tend to keep the system stable, peaceful, and secure. If the equilibrium is disturbed, the system favors adjustments that will return it to equilibrium. But if this jockeying process in which members of the system engage cannot reallocate the power loads sufficiently to obtain a roughly equal distribution among the major actors in the system, then one nation, possessing decisive strength and uninvolved in existing coalitions, will step in on the weaker side and redress the balance, thus rendering the system ultrastable. In the past, this role of balancer was associated with Great Britain, which is held by many historians to have acted in this fashion in Europe and the world at large, at least during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Those who espouse the balance-of-power model do not clearly explain why one nation should be exempt from the otherwise universal rule of wanting to take advantage of its superiority to expand its power at the expense of others. In view of the way all nations are supposed to behave, according to the rules of the model, it would not seem implausible to argue that a balancer, given its superior strength, would seek to maximize its power by attacking one coalition with the help of the other until it could reduce all other nations into submission. One cannot be quite comfortable with any other assumption.

Do all nations really wish to maximize their power? One cannot help noticing variations, over time, in the degree to which they have wished to do so. Sweden is a model of a peace-loving nation today, but it was once a feared aggressor. The United States was a peaceful, indeed an isolationist nation, in the past, but it certainly defies those definitions today. We lack, in short, the kind of universal behavior that would have to prevail for the first law of the balance-of-power system to be, as it is held to be, immutable. There are further uncertainties on this and other points. But to us the most important questions are those related to the validity of the model, and what must interest us most is whether or not the equal distribution of power does in fact, keep the peace; or, conversely, whether or not an unequal distribution of power produces war. The other two models argue against both of these possibilities.

Collective Security

A second model, based on the notion of collective security, gained both its name and its renown from its role in the formulation of the peace after World War I. Collective security presented a different set of power requirements for the maintenance of international peace. The distribution of power resources between opposing factions had to be extremely lopsided; collective security required that all members of the system move against the aggressor. "All against one" was the order of the day. If a peaceful nation failed to do its duty because of uninterest in the immediate quarrel or in the fate of the victim, or if an aggressor were able to win over potential defenders of the victim by playing on their fears or on their greed for booty, the chances of war would grow with each such defection. Even a rough equality of resources among the members of the coalition defending the victim would fail to prevent war. But if the prescription of collective security, "all against one," were obeyed and war still came, the defeat of the aggressor would be inevitable. Collective security would provide security, if not peace. Thus, the fundamental tenets of this model are as follows. A lopsided distribution of power (with defenders much stronger than the aggressor) will support peace; an equal or approximately equal distribution of power will mean war, but the aggressor will be weaker than the coalition.

This second model makes three additional assumptions. First, when a serious international dispute threatens an outbreak of hostilities, the identity of the aggressor will be clear to all. This seems very uncertain, however. There are many illustrations of one country's claiming another to be the aggressor, with every such accusation being widely credited. The wars in Vietnam, the conflict between India and Pakistan, and the recurrent struggles in the Middle East are cases in point of the difficulty of definitively identifying the aggressor.

A second assumption fundamental to the collective-security model is that all nations will be equally interested in preventing aggression and thus can be expected to regulate their political and military behavior to that end. While peace is the prized but largely unintended consequence of the ways in which the balance-of-power system works, in the collective-security system, peace is the direct and explicit aim of all its members (aside from the aggressor).

A third assumption is that alliances are the major method by which the necessary imbalance of power between aggressive and peaceful nations is to be effected. In this, the collective-security and the balance-of-power models are as one. However, only in the former is the commitment to resist aggression made a priori: the necessary coalition is to follow automatically once the need arises.

The validity of some of these assumptions will be further discussed below. At this point, we should present a third model, developed since World War II, which has some obvious differences from, and some important similarities with, the propositions of the two models already discussed.

The Power Transition

Our third model, evolved from the conception of the power transition, was formulated in the fifties. Some of its conclusions are much the same as those we have just described: an even distribution of political, economic, and military capabilities between contending groups of nations is likely to increase the probability of war; peace is preserved best when there is an imbalance of national capabilities between disadvantaged and advantaged nations; the aggressor will come from a small group of dissatisfied strong countries; and it is the weaker, rather than the stronger, power that is most likely to be the aggressor.

The following passage summarizes the major mechanics of this model:

At the very apex of the pyramid is the most powerful nation in the world, currently the United States, previously England, perhaps tomorrow Russia or China. ... Just below the apex of the pyramid are the great powers. The difference between them and the dominant nation is to be found not only in their different abilities to influence the behavior of others, but also in the differential benefits they receive from the international order to which they belong. Great powers are, as their name indicates, very powerful nations, but they are less powerful than the dominant nation. ... As we have seen ... the powerful and dissatisfied nations are usually those that have grown to full power after the existing international order was fully established and the benefits already allocated. These parvenus had no share in the creation of the international order, and the dominant nation and its supporters are not usually willing to grant the newcomers more than a small part of the advantages they receive. ... The challengers, for their part, are seeking to establish a new place for themselves in international society, a place to which they feel their increasing power entitles them. Often these nations have grown rapidly in power and expect to continue to grow. They have reason to believe that they can rival or surpass in power the dominant nation, and they are unwilling to accept a subordinate position in international affairs when dominance would give them much greater benefits and privileges.

This model insists that the significant differences in the distribution of international power are rooted in the different capacities of member states to utilize their own human and material resources. The model argues that the source of war is to be found in the differences in size and rates of growth of the members of the international system. If one introduces controls for size of nation-states — and differences here are truly spectacular — the rest of the differences in power can be accounted for by differences in levels of development of key sectors of national life. Most important are economic productivity and the efficiency of the political system in extracting and aggregating human and material resources into pools available for national purposes.

The claim that national power stems from national development has important implications for the way this model works. It is often stressed that the development revolution is worldwide. And so it is. But the changes that make up development are not spread evenly across all countries and all regions of the world. Even today, only one-third of the earth's nations are developed and at the stage of power maturity. Roughly one-third are still developing and are at some lower point of the power transition. The remainder have barely begun the long trek toward wealth and power. What is particularly important for international peace and security is the fact that the big nations — those with the largest populations and, consequently, with the largest potential for power — are spread out along the development continuum. Some, like India or Indonesia, are extremely low on the economic scale and still in the stage of potential power; others, like China and Brazil, are at different points in the transitional stage; finally, such countries as the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union are in various advanced degrees of power maturity.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The War Ledger by A. F. K. Organski. Copyright © 1980 University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Of Power
Of Size and Growth
Of Nuclear Weapons
Plan of the Book
1. Causes, Beginnings and Predictions: The Power Transition
Three Models
Comparison of the Three Models
Preparation for the Testing of a Model
Empirical Tests of the Power-Distribution Models
Conclusion
2. Davids and Goliaths: Predicting the Outcomes of International Wars
Power Indicators: Existing Measures
The Missing Measure of Political Development
Construction of a Measure of Political Development
An Index of Governmental Extraction
A New Measure of National Capabilities
Tests, Hypotheses, and Findings
Conclusion
3. The Costs of Major Wars: The Phoenix Factor
Theoretical Propositions
Indexing National Capabilities or Power Resources
Estimating Consequences of War
Choice of Test Cases
Actors
Empirical Propositions
Findings
The Phoenix Factor
Conclusion
4. Nuclear Arms Races and Deterrence
Deterrents and Deterrence
Testing Deterrence: Outcomes of Crisis
Testing Mutual Deterrence: The Nuclear Arms Race
Conclusion
5. Conclusion
A Note on Architecture
Major Wars: Beginnings
Predictions of War Outcomes
The Phoenix Factor
Deterrence and Arms Races
Beyond the Data
Appendix 1: Index of Political Development
Appendix 2: Postwar American Aid
Appendix 3: Analysis of Models
Notes
Bibliography
Index