In 1985, noted political scientist J. David Singer published an article in International Studies Quarterly titled “The Responsibilities of Competence in the Global Village.” In this work, he makes many arguments regarding the state of international politics and of those who are deeply involved in its practice, research, and instruction, and I found one of his remarks to be exceptionally interesting:
“While we have a moderately solid basis for doubting the efficacy of sustained military buildup as an instrument of national security, we have considerably less evidence on the relative efficacy of alternative instruments or substitute strategies.”
This statement was especially accurate at the time of its conception during the Cold War era, as officials realized peace between nations could no longer be achieved by war – due to the existence of nuclear weapons and the concept of mutually assured destruction – yet they did not know how else to ensure the protected welfare of their state and its values without using force. As a result, officials turned to international diplomacy as a makeshift solution and the period of Cold War uncertainty slowly fizzled out.
This example illustrates how historically, international relations has a tendency to come about out of a necessity to survive rather than a desire for coexistence, though I find that this notion is still applicable to the current state of global affairs. The human race has practiced the art of war since the beginning of time, so this is where our experience lies. When war no longer became an option for the major players on the global stage due to the existence of nuclear weapons, we (the human race) turned to the less practiced methodology of diplomacy to protect what we thought valuable.
Singer makes the argument that “we [society] do not know very much about the dynamics of world affairs…just as an athletic team will be quite unsuccessful if its coaches are ignorant of the principles of the sport…foreign policy elites will have an abysmal track record if the regularities-and exceptions-of global politics are relatively unknown,” and I agree. Though international diplomacy is not a new concept, most nations’ dependence on the practice increased substantially during the nuclear and post-nuclear era. Up until that those eras, diplomacy was a secondary tactic; we didn’t have to be good at international relations because there was always the war option to fall back on when we failed.
To see an illustration of this notion, one must look no further than the year preceding the start of World War II. Adolf Hitler had, up until this point, been building up an army of massive proportions and looked to be in pursuit of substantial amounts of territory. In order to put an end to his conquest, top officials from France and the UK devised what is known today as the Munich Agreement in 1938. Signed into action by Benito Mussolini of Italy, French Premier Edouard Daladier, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler himself, the agreement gave Hitler ownership of Czechoslovakia as long as he vowed to advance no further in his pursuit of power.
Though it was attempted, international diplomacy and cooperation was not achieved by this agreement. Hitler violated its terms, and the start of World War II followed shortly after. The leaders of the involved nations tried to find a solution to the problem that did not require violence, and when they could not make that solution work, they resorted to war. I am not saying that war was not the right option, but trying to make a point about how inexperienced we are as a human race when it comes to politics on a global scale. Until the coming about of weapons of mass destruction, we did not have to learn from our mistakes we made in international negotiations because there was always war to fall back on. Today, that is not the case.
The current state of global politics is one, as Singer puts it, of “indifference, ignorance, and incompetence,” and to an extent, I agree with his judgment. Most (if not all) nations tend to look out for their own best interests when interacting with others, for in the words of Singer, “too many of us find all too many temptations to ‘go with the flow’ in our nations’ policies…for challenging the conventional wisdom can be costly.” Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom regarding international relations is lacking, and until those who are deeply involved in the practice, teaching, and studying of world politics find the gall to dispute or improved upon that wisdom, we are unlikely to thrive as a population.
In future civic issue blog posts, I hope to build upon this idea that growth is necessary to thrive on a global scale, and investigate how the United States, specifically, has improved upon their international relations skills, as well as the direction the field is headed in. I would also like to investigate how the US’s idea of ‘good’ global politics differs from that of other major powers.