The Abolition of Slavery and the End of International War
Author(s): James Lee Ray
Source: International Organization, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Summer, 1989), pp. 405-439
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706653 .
Accessed: 15/10/2011 23:39
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International
Organization.
http://www.jstor.org
The abolition of slavery and the end of
international war James Lee Ray
In A Study of War,Quincy Wrightobserves that "war ... is foundin nearly
all existing groups, however primitive."'IThe origins of slavery may well
have involved a combinationof warfareand economic incentives, as noted
by Will Durant: "The rise of agriculture .
.
. led to the employment of the
socially weak by the socially strong; not till then did it occur to the victor
in war that the only good prisoner is a live one. Butchery and cannibalism
lessened, slavery grew.... Warhelped to make slavery, and slaveryhelped
to make war."2
In additionto this hypothesizedconnection between their origins, slavery
and war have also shared an assumed common base in "human nature."
That is, for thousands of years even many of those with the best minds
assumed that war and slavery were naturaland thereforeinevitable. In this
view, accordingto KennethWaltz, "Ourmiseriesare ineluctablythe product
of our natures. The root of all evil is man, and thus he is himself the root
of the specific evil, war. This estimate of cause .
.
. has been immensely
influential.It is the conviction of St. Augustineand Luther, of Malthusand
An earlier version of this article was presentedat the annualmeeting of the International
Studies Association, St. Louis, 29 Marchto 2 April 1988.EimadHoury, Allen Joseph, Mihali
Krassacopoulos,PatriciaMorris,and Mi Yung Yoon madehelpfulcommentson that version.
I am especially gratefulfor the criticismsand suggestionsof GilbertAbcarian,Dale L. Smith,
StephenD. Krasner,and anonymousreviewersfor InternationalOrganization.
1. Quincy Wright,A Study of War,2d ed. (Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1965),p.
36.
2. Will Durant,OurOrientalHeritage (New York:Simon & Schuster, 1951),p. 20. See also
L. T. Hobhouse, Moralsin Evolution,4th ed. (London:Chapman& Hall, 1923),p. 272. "Two
conditions," asserts Hobhouse, "suffice to insure the growth of slavery ... in the savage
world. The first conditionis a certaindevelopmentof industrialization."(By this he means, it
is obvious fromthe context, agriculture.)"In a huntingtribe, which lives fromhandto mouth,
there is little occasion for the services of a slave." Hobhouse then explains that the second
condition is "warlikeprowess," thus also pointingto war as the interveningvariable, so to
speak, between the rise of agricultureand the appearanceof slavery.
International Organization 43, 3, Summer 1989
?) 1989by the WorldPeace Foundationand the MassachusettsInstituteof Technology
406 InternationalOrganization
JonathanSwift, of Dean Inge and ReinholdNiebuhr."93 Aristotle, the "greatest philosopher and scientist of the ancient world,"4 believed that some
"'people are slaves by nature.... For a man who is able to belong to
another person is by naturea slave (for that is why he belongs to someone
else . . . )."15 Almost two thousand years later, John Locke was still defendingthe enslavementof foreigncaptives, and "no realisticleader" in the
1700s considered the abolition of slavery a reasonable possibility in the
foreseeable future.6
Nevertheless, slavery was effectively abolishedin the nineteenthcentury.7
Its disappearancerendersplausible the possibility that within decades both
slaveryand internationalwar will seem quaintand unthinkablein the modern
age. Skepticism about such a propositionmay be almost universal, but as
Samuel Kim points out, "For centuries slavery was 'imagined' as an immutable part of the naturalsocial order. Hence it was utopian to advocate
its abolition."8 In a similar vein, Robert Axelrod observes that "'a major
goal of investigatinghow cooperative norms in societal settings have been
established is a better understandingof how to promote cooperative norms
in internationalsettings. This is not as utopian as it might seem because
international norms against slavery .
.
. are already strong."9 The main
implication (at least from the perspective of this article) of Axelrod's argumentis clear. Slaveryhas disappearedbecause internationalnormsagainst
3. KennethWaltz, Man, the State, and War(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1959),
p. 3.
4. Michael H. Hart, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History (New
York: A & W Publishing,1978),p. 105.
5. Quote from Aristotle's Politics, cited in David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress
(New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1984),p. 3. See also WayneAmbler,"Aristotleon Nature
and Politics:The Case of Slavery," Political Theory15 (August1987),pp. 390-410; and Wylie
Sypher, "Hutchesonand the 'Classical'Theoryof Slavery," TheJournalof Negro Slavery24
(July 1939),p. 264. Amblerinsists that Aristotlehas been misinterpretedon this point and that
Aristotle's standardsfor "natural"slavery were so demandingthat in effect he was speaking
out againstslavery as it was actuallypracticed.If Ambleris correct, the followingobservation
by Sypheris especially ironic:"For generationsbefore Europebecameawareof the barbarous
treatmentof Negro slaves in the New Worldcolonies, jurists and philosophersaccepted as a
matterof course the 'classical' theory of slavery expoundedin Aristotle'sPolitics."
6. Davis, Slaveryand Human Progress, pp. 107-8. In anotherwork, Davis notes that Benjamin Franklinowned Negro slaves as late as 1750,and "it would appearthat his desire to get
rid of them was more a productof racialprejudicethan humanitarianism."See David Brion
Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1966),p. 426.
7. Admittedly,slavery has not been completelyeradicatedin modernor even contemporary
times. "The institutionwas finallyoutlawed by Saudi Arabiain 1962and by the Sultanateof
Muscat and Omanin 1970," accordingto Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. 379. Furthermore,Stalin and Hitler both made massive use of slave labor, and even today there is a
controversyabout slaveryin the Sudan.See UshariAhmadMahmudand SuleymanAli Baldo,
Al Diein Massacre: Slavery in the Sudan (Khartoum: University of Khartoum, 1987).
8. Samuel Kim, The Questfor a Just WorldOrder(Boulder,Colo.: Westview Press, 1984),
p. 81.
9. Robert Axelrod, "An EvolutionaryApproachto Norms," AmericanPolitical Science
Review 80 (December 1986),p. 1110.
Internationalwar 407
it are strong; presumably, additionalevils such as internationalwar might
also disappear,and for similarreasons.
In this article, I address the validity of an argumentbased on an analogy
between the abolitionof slavery and the demise of internationalwar. I begin
with a discussion of the rise and fall of slavery, placing special emphasis on
the contending explanations of slavery's disappearance. Next, I analyze
competingtheoretical approachesto the role of ethical constraintsin international politics. This discussion of slavery's demise and the theoretical
considerationof the role of ethics in internationalpolitics then serves as the
basis for an evaluationof the assertion that the fate of slavery portendsthe
coming end of internationalwar.
Explaining slavery's demise: moral progress
or declining profitability?
Slavery was common in ancient Egypt, Babylonia,Assyria, Greece, Rome,
India, and China. The extent to which ancient Greece relied on slaves plays
an importantrole in two controversies relevant to the focus of this article,
possibly because the practice became prominentin Greece.'0 One controversy, cited by Moses Finley, involves the juxtaposition of the emergence
of important"Western" or liberal values and the concomitantprevalence
of slavery: "The cities in which individual freedom reached its highest
expression-most obviously Athens-were cities in which chattel slavery
flourished."" That the Greeks could formulateand espouse the values of
individualfreedom and democracy and simultaneouslyenslave so many in
theirmidst suggests that moralvalues do not have a powerfuldeterrenteffect
on slavery as a social practice.
The extent to which ancient Greece dependedon slavery is also important
to an evaluation of a standardMarxist interpretationof history, which focuses on "conflicts of economic classes correspondingto specific modes of
production, such as slavery, feudalism, or capitalism."12 Ancient Greece,
in the view of FriedrichEngels, was cruciallydependenton slavery: "Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science; without slavery, no
Roman empire .
.
. no modern Europe .
.
. no modern socialism."13 Just
10. "Though actual slaves never formed a significant percentage of the population of China,
or ancient Egypt, in Greece . . . the number kept increasing from the Persian Wars to the time
of Alexander," according to Davis, The Problem of Slavery, p. 75.
11. See Moses I. Finley, "Was Greek Civilization Based on Slave Labor?" in Moses I.
Finley, ed., Slavery in Classical Antiquity: Views and Controversies (Cambridge: W. Heffer,
1960), p. 3; cited in Davis, The Problem of Slavery.
12. Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders, eds., Socialist Thought (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor
Books, 1964), p. 278.
13. Quote from Friedrich Engels' essay, "Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science (AntiDuhring)," cited in M. M. Bober, Karl Marx's Interpretation of History (New York: Norton,
1965), p. 50.
408 InternationalOrganization
how important slavery was in the Roman Empire is a question that has
generateda controversymuchlike that concerningGreece. Marxistscholars
agree that it was quite importantand that a fundamentalcause of Roman
imperialismwas the economy's need for slaves. But David Brion Davis, in
a mannertypical of critics of Marxistanalyses, asserts that the Romans did
not in fact establish an empire for the purpose of acquiringslaves, even
though he does acknowledge that "the Roman empire .
.
. bequeathed to
Christian Europe the juridical and philosophical foundations for modern
slavery."14
The practice of slavery became distinctly less prevalent as the Roman
Empire declined, and for Marxists the reasons are clear. When slavery
disappears,it does so because it is replacedby a more efficientand therefore
more progressivemode of production.But Davis points out that "the problem of the decline of slavery in later Romanhistory is so entangledwith the
question of the decline of the Empire itself that one must be suspicious of
any simple explanation."'5 One can surmise that the "simple" explanation
evoking the most suspicion in Davis's mind is the Marxist model, which
suggests that slavery gave way to feudalismin a naturalprogressionbecause
of internalcontradictionsin the slave system. The details of this process are
clearly debatable. "Whatare the productiveforces liberatedby slavery that
unavoidably create a higher order .
.
. ? Does a slave mode of production
inevitably produce circumstances which must result in feudalism?" asks
M. M. Bober in Karl Marx's Interpretation of History. In Bober's opinion,
at least, there is "no answer" to these questions.'6Nevertheless, it is quite
clear that in Western Europe "slavery declined and then virtually disappeared with the emergence of the feudal system." 17
Moral progress may have had something to do with this development.
John Nef points out that "before Dante's time [1215-1321A.D.], slavery had
almostentirelydisappearedamongthe Christianpeoples of WesternEurope,
partly, as Montesquieulater assumed, 'because the law of the churchmade
it inadmissableto reduce to servitude a brotherin Christ.' "18 But slavery
did not entirely disappear from Europe in the Middle Ages; slavery-like
serfdomthrivedin Europefor centuries;andmost important,manypowerful
European states were on the verge of inauguratingthe great transatlantic
slave trade in the following centuries. It is therefore difficultto sustain an
argumentthat the decline of slavery in medieval Europe was primarilythe
result of an emergingmoral consensus that slavery was wrong. The reluctance of Christiansto enslave other Christianscan be seen as an important
step in the direction of forming that consensus, but it seems that where
14. Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. 27.
15. Davis, The Problem of Slavery, p. 37.
16. Bober, Karl Marx's Interpretation of History, p. 54.
17. Davis, The Problem of Slavery, p. 37.
18. John U. Nef, War and Human Progress (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1950), p. 232.
Internationalwar 409
slavery did disappearin Europe, it was largelybecause economic processes
made it outmoded and less profitable."The decline of slavery was not due
to moral progress," asserts Durant in The Age of Faith (focusing on the
Middle Ages), "but to economic change. Productionunder direct physical
compulsionproved less profitableor convenient than productionunder the
stimulus of acquisitive desire."19
Slavery in the New World
The discovery of the New World created powerful economic incentives
that led to a resurgenceof slavery on a grand scale-probably, in fact, the
grandest of all time.20In the period from 1502to almost 1900, slaves were
brought from Africa to the Americas by the millions. (Native Americans
were used as slaves in the earlier years, but they proved "unsuitable" in
several ways, one of which was a stubborntendency to die.) Great Britain
officially prohibitedthe slave trade in 1807and played a role in bringingit
to a virtualhalt by the latter half of the nineteenthcentury. The Britishalso
legally ended slavery in territories under their control in 1833, while the
Civil Warbroughtit to an end in the United States by 1865.Cubaand Brazil
were the last holdouts in the Westernhemisphere;slavery was abolished in
Cuba in 1886, while Brazil officially terminatedit in 1888.
Many of the most influentialinterpretationsof the demise of slavery in
the Western hemisphere have been "economistic,"s21 whether devised by
classical or liberaltheorists on the one hand or by Marxist,radicalscholars
on the other. As Davis indicates, both schools of thought convey "the
comfortableassurance that slavery was doomed by impersonallaws of historical progress and that economic development ensured .
.
. social and
moral betterment."22In short, both liberals and radicals, in their analyses
of slavery, typically exhibit a common faith in the rationalityor utilitymaximizingbehaviorof those involved in exploitingslave labor. When slavery disappears,in this view, it must have been forced out by a more efficient
system of production.23
Classical analyses of the demise of slavery that focus on market forces
date directly back to Adam Smith. In The Wealthof Nations, Smith argued
19. Will Durant, The Age of Faith (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950), p. 524.
20. Howard Temperley, "Capitalism, Slavery, and Ideology," Past and Present 75 (May
1977), p. 94.
21. Richard K. Ashley, "Three Modes of Economism," International Studies Quarterly 24
(December 1983), pp. 463-96.
22. Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. xiv.
23. This similarity in the views of classicists and Marxists is arguably less anomalous than
it might appear at first glance. See George Soule, Ideas of Great Economists (New York:
Mentor, 1952), p. 63. Soule points out that "the economic theory developed in Capital is almost
wholly classical, much though the discovery may surprise both orthodox followers of Smith
and Ricardo as well as orthodox socialists. Marx used no assumption not outlined by some
writer of the classical school, and his method of reasoning was, like theirs, deduction from a
few relatively simple postulates."
410 InternationalOrganization
that slaves can have no interestbut "to eat as muchas possible and to labour
as little as possible" and that work done by slaves is inevitablythe "dearest
of any" (that is, grossly inefficient)and thus bound to disappearif market
forces are allowed to operate.24Davis states that "Smith was certain," for
example, "that economic causes explainedthe abolitionof bondagein Western Europe. Landowners simply came to realize that their profits would
increase by giving labor a share of the produce.''25
If slave labor is in principleso relativelyunproductive,why did it appear
in the first place? Smith explained this anomalyfor his theory with a rather
obviously ad hoc modification:he asserted that slave owners engagedin the
dominationof inferiorsout of a love of power, even to the detrimentof their
economic self-interest.26
Marxistanalystsare usuallymoretheoreticallyconsistent. Slaveryappears
and disappears,in their view, as the result of marketforces. Slavery must
have been "rational"; otherwise the practice would not have been developed. Likewise, when it disappears,it does so because the dialecticalprocess
has reached the point at which a new mode of productionhas become more
efficient.
One of the most noted contemporaryanalyses of the disappearanceof
slavery in the Western hemisphere is that of Eric Williams in Capitalism
and Slavery, which focuses on the history of slavery in the British West
Indies. Williams' thesis is straightforward:"When British capitalism depended on the West Indies, they ignoredor defended it. When Britishcapitalism found the West Indian monopoly a nuisance, they destroyed West
Indian slavery as a first step in the destructionof the West Indian monopoly. " 27
The thesis most cleary in contrast to the "economistic" argumentsof
Williams and others emphasizes the importanceof moral progress in the
process that broughtabout the eliminationof slavery in the Western hemisphere. CraneBrinton,in A Historyof WesternMorals, succinctlydescribes
the heart of this debate:
The prize exhibit of those who can still believe in moral progress is the
Western achievement of abolishing chattel slavery....
The Marxists,
and not only the Marxists, never tire of insisting that slavery has always prevailedwhere it was economically profitableand has only been
abolished after it has been demonstratedto at least most slave-owners
... that slavery is unprofitable.... The honest materialistwould have
to admit that the completeness of abolitioncan be explained only by
24. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Norton, 1937), p. 63.
25. Davis, The Problem of Slavery, p. 434.
26. Ibid.
27. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1944), p. 169.
Internationalwar 411
the fact that the overwhelmingmajorityof Westernerscame in a few
generations to feel that slavery is
wrong.28
Economism versus idealism
The British, abolition in the West Indies, and the end of the Atlantic slave
trade. The debate between adherentsto economistic models on the one hand
and defenders of moral progress on the other focuses on the motives of
policymakersand other political and economic agents involved in the abolition of slavery, motives that were invisible and perhaps even obscured
intentionally. Who knows what evil (or virtue) lurks in the hearts of men
(or persons)? Nevertheless, there are differences in the empiricalimplications of these competing models which may allow at least a tentative evaluationof their relative validity. The economistic models, but not their competitors, suggest that at some point slave owners realized that slave labor
had become relatively unprofitableand then more or less voluntarilygave
up their slaves in order to move on to some more profitablemode of production. But, as HowardTemperleypointsout, "Virtuallywithoutexception
the principaldefendersof slavery were, in fact, the slaveholdersthemselves
[and] .
.
. by contrast, those who spearheaded the attack on slavery were
almost invariablymen with no direct economic stake in the institution.''29
Economistic models also suggest that once slave owners had done the
rightthingfrom an "expected utility" point of view, they reapedthe benefits
of their wisdom. Models emphasizingidealism and moral progress, in contrast, imply that abolitionoccurs even in the absence of an economic payoff
and perhaps even in the face of economic costs, since profit and loss calculations have not been central, in this view, to the process that eliminated
slavery.
In the key case of the West Indies, the economistic implicationthat abolition was profitableturns out ratherclearly to be wrong. Sugarproduction
in the wake of abolition dropped precipitously-by a third overall and by
as much as 50 percent in specific cases, such as Jamaica.30This hurt not
only the formerslave owners but also those who marketedand boughtsugar
in Great Britain. Partly as a result of the abolition of slavery in the West
Indies, sugargrowersin Cubaand Brazilsteppedup the importationof slaves
andthe exportof sugarto GreatBritain.Havingeffectively abolishedslavery
in their own colonial holdings, the British stepped up the pressure against
the traffic in slaves to Cuba and Brazil. The economistic interpretationof
this British policy is that it was a rationalattemptby the Britishto prevent
competitorsfromobtainingslave laborin orderto protectthe sugarproducers
28. Crane Brinton, A History of Western Morals (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959), pp.
435-36.
29. Temperley, "Capitalism, Slavery, and Ideology," p. 97.
30. Ibid., p. 103.
412 InternationalOrganization
in their own colonies.31 But denyingthe Brazilians,for example, free access
to slaves deprived the British of access to the cheap sugar and other commodities those newly imported slaves would have produced, and it also
depressedthe marketfor Britishexports thatcould have been createdamong
slave owners and others in Brazil who might have reaped the economic
benefits of selling those slave-producedcommodities.32
The abolition of slavery and of slave trade, then, was not clearly an
economically rationalmove by the British. Admittedly, the argumentthat
abolitionwas based primarilyon ethical considerationsis weakened by the
fact that abolitionists as well as their opponents made consistent attempts
to conceal theirmotives.33Furthermore,Temperleymakesa convincingcase
for his assertionthat abolitionistsin Britainin the 1830sbelieved that ending
slavery would bringeconomic benefitsto Britain,thus creatingdoubts about
the relative importance of the contributions of economic incentives and
ethicalconstraintsto the success of thatmovement.34Nevertheless, evidence
regardingthe economically damagingeffects of the abolition of both the
slave trade and slavery is sufficient to undermineto an importantdegree
economistic explanationsof Great Britain'srole in slavery's demise. Temperley, for example, concludes that Eric Williams' "own evidence fails to
supporthis conclusions . .. [and]furtherevidence shows that the dominant
economic interests in Britain,far from being impelledto weaken or destroy
slavery, would have profitedfrom strengtheningand extending it."35Similarly, David Eltis asserts that the slave trade in the Americas was "killed
when its significance ...
was greater than at any point in its history....
For [the] British, . . . there was profoundincompatibilitybetween economic
31. See, for example, Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 148. These authors point out that in 1826 "Britain
got from Brazil a treaty commitment to end the slave trade by 1830. The British wanted this
commitment for several reasons. One, usually stressed by modern day economic historians, is
that Britain feared that slave-produced sugar from Brazil would prove cheaper in the world
market than sugar from the British West Indies, where slavery had recently been abolished."
Skidmore and Smith unwittingly undermine the economistic argument here, since slavery was
not in fact abolished in the British West Indies until 1833, which was seven years after the date
(1826) they obtained the commitment from Brazil to end the slave trade by 1830. They also
explicitly support the "idealistic" or "moral progress" model, asserting that another reason
for British action against the slave trade to Brazil was "pressure on the British government
generated by British abolitionists" (p. 148).
32. David Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 12.
33. Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. 170. See also Roger Anstey, The Atlantic Slave
Trade and British Abolition, 1760-1810 (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1975);
and Seymour Drescher, Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977).
34. Temperley, "Capitalism, Slavery, and Ideology," p. 118.
35. Howard Temperley, "Anti-Slavery as Cultural Imperialism," in Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher, eds., Anti-Slavery, Religion, and Reform (Hamden, Conn.: Anchor Books,
1980), p. 339. Temperley cites Drescher, Econocide, in support of his assertion. In a later
volume, Capitalism and Antislavery (New York: Macmillan, 1986), Drescher maintains that
'most of the specifics of Williams' economic argument have ... been undermined" (p. 2).
Internationalwar 413
self-interestand antislaverypolicy." Furthermore,Eltis has no doubt about
why the antislavery policy was adopted: "The set of beliefs that branded
slavery and the slave trade as evil preventedthe continuedincorporationof
the slave trade and slavery into the British and indeed the world economic
system at a time when the British economy had the greatest need of such
institutions."36Davis concurs: "Britain's dogged pursuitof foreign slavers
was . . . contraryto the nation's immediatepoliticaland economic interests.
The impetus behind British anti-slaverypolicies was mainly religious. 37
The American Civil War and abolitionism. Slavery in the United States
was abolished as a result of the Union's victory over the Confederacy in
the Civil War. The impact of that war on the practice of slavery can be
integratedinto quite disparateexplanatorythemes. One arguesthat slavery
was not an importantissue in that struggle, and so its disappearanceafter
the war was a side effect that cannotbe convincinglyattributedto the ethical
concerns of abolitionistsin the North. Another interpretsthe Civil War as
a competition between one system based on "wage slavery" and another
based on chattel slavery, with the victory of the former representingthe
ascendance of a more efficient mode of production.38
But vital economic interests in the North, up to the time of the Civil War,
profitedhandsomelyfrom the toil of slaves in the South. Accordingto Temperley, "Northerncotton manufacturerswere dependenton Southernplantation agriculturefor theirraw materials.New York financehouses provided
Southernerswith much of their capital and reaped their rewardin interest.
New Englandshipperscarriedthe South's cotton to the factories of Europe
and the North."39
Granted, the clash of economic interests in the rapidly industrializing
North and the primarilyagriculturalSouth created several issues, such as
the focus on tariffs, to cite a prominentexample, which made victory for
the Union beneficial to the pocketbooks of many in the North. However,
the predominanteconomic classes in the North were not necessarily well
served by the abolition of slavery in the South. The antislaveryposition of
the Union did bringclear politicalbenefits, some of which were international
in scope, and those benefits,arguably,flowedultimatelyfromthe widespread
feeling that slavery was indefensibleon ethical grounds.Even the South was
responsive to such considerations, as Eltis makes clear: "One of the first
actions of the Montgomery(Alabama)ConstitutionalConvention of 1861,
36. Eltis, Economic Growth, pp. 15 and 28.
37. Davis, SlaveryandHumanProgress,pp. xxviii and236. See also IrvingKristol," 'Human
Rights':The HiddenAgenda," The National Interest6 (Winter1986-87),p. 10. In this recent
article on ethical issues in contemporaryinternationalpolitics, Kristolasserts that "probably
the 'purest'-most moral, least self-interested-foreign policy action ever taken on behalf of
'humanrights'was the Britishnavy's suppressionof the slave tradein the nineteenthcentury."
38. Argumentset forth by A. M. Simons in Class Struggle in America, a 1903publication
cited in Temperley, "Capitalism,Slavery, and Ideology," pp. 101-2.
39. Temperley, "Capitalism,Slavery, and Ideology," pp. 101-2.
414 InternationalOrganization
as the new Confederacystrove for internationalacceptance, was to prohibit
slave importationsfrom any foreign source."40 In short, both the Union's
position against slavery and the South's official position against the slave
trade were evoked in part to take advantageof domestic and international
political supportbased on an increasinglyaccepted internationalnorm that
slavery was unacceptable.
Furthermore,one point thatthe exceedinglycontroversialstudyby Robert
Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross, does seem to have established quite convincingly is that slavery in the Confederacywas not an
incrediblyinefficienteconomic institutionon its last legs in a regionsuffering
from great deprivation as a result of its stubborn resistance to the more
economically rationalforces of abolition:"Far from being poverty stricken,
the South was quite rich by the standardsof the antebellumera. If we treat
the North and the South as separate nations and rank them among the
countries of the world, the South would stand as the fourth richest nation
of the world in 1860.''41 As one review of Time on the Cross concludes,
"The slavery system [in the South] was not economicallydead or even near
death as the Civil War approached;in fact, there was little indicationthat
the system would ever collapse of its own weight.''42 In sum, the abolition
of slavery by the victorious Union did not merely bring about that which
was about to happen anyway because the slave system had become economically unviable. And since the North's victory was inspired in some
measure,perhaps,by abolitionists,andeven moreimportant,since the Union's
antislavery stance was formulatedto cultivate domestic and international
political supportbased on the belief that slavery was wrong, the demise of
slavery in the South can be seen as a result, in part, of moral progress.43
40. Eltis, Economic Growth, p. 209.
41. Robert WilliamFogel and Stanley L. Engerman,Time on the Cross (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1974),p. 249. Fogel andEngermanalso observethat "the Southwas richerthanFrance,
richerthan Germany,richerthan Denmark,richerthan any of the countriesof Europeexcept
England"(p. 249) and that "per capita income was actuallygrowing30 percentmore rapidly
in the South than the North. The South's rate of growthwas so rapid . .. that it constitutes
primafacie evidence againstthe thesis that slavery retardedsoutherngrowth" (p. 251).
42. Wilson Record and Joan Cassells Record, "Review Symposium,"ContemporarySociology 4 (July 1975),p. 361.
43. Cases can be made for the importanceof moralprogressas a factor in bringingan end
to slaveryin Braziland Cuba,which I will describebrieflyhere to conserve space. Withregard
to the endingof the slave tradein Brazil, Eltis asserts that "developmentswithinBrazilcannot
be ignored,[but]the majorpressuresfor suppressioncame fromoutsidethe importingregions.
The most generalizedof these by mid-nineteenthcenturywas the internationalopprobriumin
which the slave trade was held. As the Brazilianforeign ministerconceded, . .. his country
could no longer 'resist the pressure of the ideas of the age in which we live.' " See Eltis,
Economic Growth,p. 209. The abolitionof slavery itself in Brazilcame much later, in 1888.
It was inspiredin part by an abolitionistcampaign,by the spreadingturbulenceand flightof
slaves, and by the fact that soldiers and officers chargedwith catchingand returningfugitive
slaves reached the point at which they refused such missions on the groundsthat they were
morallyrepugnant.See Skidmoreand Smith, ModernLatinAmerica, pp. 151-52; and Robert
Brent Toplin, TheAbolitionof Slaveryin Brazil(New York: Atheneum,1972),pp. 225-46. In
Cuba, Spaindecreed an end to slaveryin 1886,underpressureand influencefromabolitionists
Internationalwar 415
A cautious conclusion
The evidence that slavery was a productive, apparentlyefficient mode of
productionin most places in the New Worldup to the time it was abolished
and the additionalindicationsthat the demise of slavery entailed economic
costs for slave owners and others who had benefitedfrom the laborof slaves
(includingabolitionists themselves) enhance the plausibilityof the case in
favor of the importance of moral progress in bringingan end to slavery.
Ethical considerationsmay not have always been of primaryimportanceto
those who were responsible for ending slavery. And some actions against
slavery were cynical, designed to reap politicalbenefits. But those political
benefits would not have been realizablehad it not been for the increasingly
common idea that slavery was immoral. At the very least, it can be said
with some confidence that competing argumentsto the effect that slavery
disappearedonly when abolition clearly became the economically rational
thing to do are not compelling.
Moral values and international politics
The basic idea that "might makes right" runs throughthe entire history of
politicalthoughtand should not be attributedto any single politicalthinker.
Nevertheless, in moderntimes the notionthatpoliticalactions are and should
be independentfrom ethical considerations, especially in the international
arena,is virtuallysynonymouswith the nameof Machiavelli.44Machiavelli's
claimthatinternationalpolitics in particularmustbe divorcedfrom "normal"
ethicalconstraintscan be tracedfromRenaissanceItaly to Hobbes, Spinoza,
Hume, and Nietzsche and, in contemporarytimes, to Hans Morgenthau.
Morgenthau'sPolitics Among Nations elaboratedon the basic assertionthat
"statesmen think and act in terms of power" by warningagainst "equating
the foreign policies of a statesmanwith his philosophicor political sympathies" andby insistingthat "moralprinciplescannotbe appliedto the actions
of states."45Such views have been so influentialfor so long that, according
to Charles Beitz, "for many years, it has been impossible to make moral
arguments about internationalrelations to its American students without
encounteringthe claim that moraljudgments have no place in discussions
of internationalaffairs or foreign policy."46
in Spain, the United States, Great Britain, and Cuba as well as in response to a wide range of
additional political and economic incentives. See Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, pp.
285-91.
44. Daniel Donno, "Introduction," Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince (Toronto: Bantam
Books, 1966), p. 7.
45. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 4th ed. (New York: Knopf, 1967), pp.
5-10.
46. Charles R. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1979), p. 15.
416 InternationalOrganization
"Realists" such as Morgenthau,Henry Kissinger, Raymond Aron, and
Robert Strausz-Hupewere and are staunchlyanticommunistin orientation,
but on the relationshipbetween ethics and political action, their thinking
shares some importantsimilaritieswith Marxist perspectives. Realists and
Marxists warn against taking the statements of political leaders about the
ethical bases of their actions at face value. Realists argue that such statements are at best rationalizations(or tactics), while Marxists assert that
ideologicaljustifications for political acts are part of the "superstructure"
and represent tools in class warfare designed to defend class interests.47
Trotsky, for example, in TheirMorals and Ours, warns that "the appeal to
abstract norms is not a disinterestedphilosophicalmistake but a necessary
element in the mechanismsof class deception.''48 Realists conclude that it
is the duty of leaders to do what is necessary to defend the interests of the
state. Marxists (or at least some Marxists, such as Trotsky) come to analogous conclusions about their preferredpoliticalagent: "To a revolutionary
Marxist there can be no contradictionbetween personal morality and the
interests of the party, since the partyembodiesin his consciousness the very
highest tasks and aims of humanity."49
Moral skepticism versus idealism
In opposition to the realists and Marxists,who express moral skepticism,
are the "idealists" (or idea-lists), who express confidencein the independent
role that ideas as well as ideals do and should play in international(and
domestic) politics. World War II ratherseverely depleted the ranks of idealists among American internationalrelations scholars; that war was interpreted by many as indicative of fatal weaknesses (literallyas well as intellectually) in the legalistic approachthat dominatedthe field for most of the
interwarperiod, leaving a relatively hardy few to combat the realistic tide
in the 1950s.
But idealismresurfacedin the 1970s,at least in the eyes of some. Perhaps
its most importantincarnationwas RobertKeohaneandJosephNye's Power
and Interdependence,50 which according to Stanley Michilak "may well
become the Politics Among Nations of the 1970s."51 Power and Interdependence is explicitly antirealistin some importantrespects, de-emphasizing
47. KarlMarxand FriedrichEngels, "The GermanIdeology," in Lewis S. Feuer, ed., Marx
and Engels (GardenCity, N.Y.: AnchorBooks, 1959),p. 247. See also MarshallCohen, "Moral
Skepticismand InternationalRelations," in CharlesR. Beitz et al., eds., InternationalEthics
(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1985),p. 12. Cohen notes that "in defendinghis
claim that all politics is 'power' politics, Morgenthauoffers . .. quasi-Marxistarguments."
48. Leon Trotsky, TheirMorals and Ours (New York: PathfinderPress, 1973),p. 22.
49. Ibid., p. 44.
50. RobertKeohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence(Boston: Little, Brown,
1977).
51. Stanley Michilak,Jr., "TheoreticalPerspectivesfor UnderstandingInternationalInterdependence," WorldPolitics 32 (October 1979),p. 150.
Internationalwar 417
the role of states and downplayingthe significanceof militaryforce. It also
emphasizesthe impactof "regimes"on state behavior.Fromthe perspective
of this article, it is most useful to stress that "regimes can be definedas ...
norms" and that norms are in turn "standardsof behaviordefinedin terms
of rights and obligations." As Stephen Krasner acknowledges, "Regimegoverned behavior must not be based solely on short-termcalculations of
interest....
[It] must embody some sense of generalobligation."52 Donald
Puchala and Raymond Hopkins are even more explicit about the idealistic
implicationsof regime analysis. "Statesmen nearly always perceive themselves," they assert, "as constrainedby principles, norms, and rules that
prescribeand proscribe varieties of behavior."53
Interdependenceor regime analysis, then, does emphasize, at least by
fairly clear implications,the impactof ethical constraintsand moral values.
This strikesJohn Spanier,for example, as "unrealistic":"The argumentfor
interdependencereflects an attempt to escape power politics into a calmer,
more decent and humane world....
[It] represents a deeply felt utopian
streak . . . in American thinking in internationalpolitics."54 There is, in
short,enoughidealismin interdependence/regime
analysisto makeit a tempting
target for moral skeptics from various points on the ideological spectrum,
such as Spanierand Susan Strange.55
Obscured areas of agreement
But upon inspection, what is strikingabout the debate between the moral
skeptics (such as the realists and Marxists)on the one handand the idealists
(both old and new) on the other is a considerabledegree of agreementon
the impact of ethical constraintsand moral values as motivatingfactors in
internationalpolitics, along with virtualunanimityregardingthe concurrent
prevalence of self-interested, utility-maximizingbehavior in the global political system. Even Machiavelli acknowledged that there are times when
"the prince" should refrainfrom his capacity to be "other than good" and
that it is often true that "morality
pays."56
Politics Among Nations includes
a chapter entitled "InternationalMorality," and the conclusion is not that
moral principles do not matter. On the contrary, Morgenthaudeclares that
"if we ask ourselves what statesmen and diplomatsare capable of doing to
furtherthe power objectives of their respective nations and what they ac52. Stephen D. Krasner, "StructuralCauses and Regime Consequences:Regimes as Intervening Variables,"InternationalOrganization36 (Spring1982),pp. 186-87.
53. Donald J. Puchala and Raymond F. Hopkins, "InternationalRegimes: Lessons from
Inductive Analysis," International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), p. 270.
54. John Spanier,GamesNations Play, 6th ed. (Washington,D.C.: CongressionalQuarterly
Press, 1987),p. 670.
55. Susan Strange, "Cave! Hic Dragones: A Critique of Regime Analysis," International
Organization36 (Spring1982),p. 441.
56. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 56.
418 InternationalOrganization
tually do, we realize that they do less than they probablycould and less than
they did in other periods of history .... Moral values do not permit certain
policies to be considered at all. . . . Certain things are not being done on
moral grounds, even though it would be expedient to do them."57
Such sentiments are not that unusual in realist writings. In Peace and
War,Aron observes that "the realistwho asserts that man is a beast of prey
and urges him to behave as such, ignores a whole side of human nature.
Even in the relationsbetween states, respect for ideas, aspirationsto higher
values and concern for obligation have been manifested. Rarely have collectivities acted as if they would stop at nothing with regard to one another."58 KennethThompson,sufficientlyclose to Morgenthauto have been
selected to preparea posthumouseditionof Politics Among Nations, asserts
that "4even those statesmen who have scoffed at .
.
. higher principles ...
have been obliged to amend their harsh criticisms. For man is at heart a
moral being."59Even Spanier, the acerbic critic of the "utopian" interdependence/regimeanalysts, argues that although "the United States had an
atomic monopoly until late 1949,. . . using this atomic monopoly was never
seriously considered, for a 'Pearl Harbor'on Soviet Russia was contraryto
American traditionand morality."60In general, realists regularlyattribute
significanceto the impact of moral considerationson political decisions.6'
A similar point can be made about the role of moral values in Marxist
analysis. The "superstructure"is dialecticallyrelatedto the economic structure of society, which does not imply that it is without importanteffect. As
Harry Targ states, "A point that interpretersof Marx forget is that the
superstructure,politics, and dominantideas, for example, have a reciprocal
57. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 225.
58. Raymond Aron, Peace and War:A Theory of International Relations (New York: Praeger,
1967), p. 609.
59. Kenneth W. Thompson, The Moral Issue in Statecraft (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1966),p. 4.
60. John Spanier, American Foreign Policy Since World War II, 10th ed. (New York: Holt,
Rinehart,& Winston, 1985), p. 29. Spanier'sinterpretationof Americanpolicy from 1945to
1949 may in fact exaggeratethe impact of ethical constraints.See George Quester, Nuclear
Diplomacy (New York: Dunellen, 1970), p. 7. Quester argues persuasivelythat in the years
immediatelyfollowing World War II, the Americansdid not have a large numberof atomic
weapons and lacked confidencein aerialbombardmentbecause of studies showing its lack of
effectivenessin WorldWarII. He concludesthat "the Soviet capabilityfor occupyingWestern
Europe, and the Americancapabilityfor air attack, thus mightseem to be of the same order
of magnitude,and hence mutuallydeterrent.'"
61. In "TheoreticalPerspectives," pp. 146and 148, Michilakpoints out that "nowhere..
does Morgenthauargue that . . . morality [is] devoid of influence in abating and curtailing
internationalconflictor regularizingrelationsamongstates. In fact, he repeatedlymakes statements to the contrary."He concludesthatin generalthe "realist"modelas presentedin Power
and Interdependenceis a "straw man." The same point is made by K. J. Holsti, "A New
InternationalPolitics? Diplomacyin Complex Interdependence,"InternationalOrganization
32 (Spring 1978),pp. 513-30.
Internationalwar 419
effect on the economic base" (emphasis mine).62Trotsky saw bourgeois
moral precepts as rationalizationsand instrumentsof class warfare,but he
did not deny that political actors may be inspired by ethical values. For
example, he noted about Lenin that his " 'amoralism,'. . . his rejectionof
supra-classmorals, did not hinder him from remainingfaithful to one and
the same idea throughouthis whole life; from devoting his whole being to
the cause of the oppressed." He concludes his discussion on this point with
a rhetoricalquestion: "Does it not seem that 'amoralism'in the given case
is only a pseudonym for higher human morality?"63Even as conservative
and skeptical a critic of Marxism as Thomas Sowell acknowledges that
"Marxianmaterialismin no way precludesidealism in the popularsense of
unselfishthought and action in the service of higherconcerns."64 Marxists,
moral skeptics though they are, do not deny that ideas and ideals have an
importantimpact on political behavior.
If the general impression created by realist and Marxist analyses leads
commonly to the belief that they are more "amoral" in their theoretical
approachthan they really are, then at least some discussions of idealists and
interdependence/regimeanalysts which suggest that they are utopian are
equally misleading. As Keohane and Nye argue in a recent retrospective
discussion of Power and Interdependence,ratherthanviewing realisttheory
as an alternative to "interdependence"theory, "we regardedthe two as
necessary complements to one another."65In After Hegemony, Keohane
asserts that regimes should not be interpretedas elements of a new international order "beyond the nation-state"and that they "should be chiefly
comprehended as arrangements motivated by self interest....
This means
that, as Realists emphasize, they will be shaped largely by their most powerful members, pursuingtheir own interests."66
Not all regime analysts have such a "neorealistic" view of regimes. As
J. MartinRochesterhas pointedout, "regimes" have been adoptedby scholars with quite different overall approaches to internationalpolitics. "For
globalists," he asserts (andglobalistsby his descriptionseem legitimateheirs
62. Harry Targ, International Relations in a World of Imperialism and Class Struggle (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: SchenkmanPublishing, 1983), pp. 147-48. In his introductionto Marx and
Engels, p. xiii, Feuer asserts that "Marxismenduresas a contributionto our politicalethics.
This may seem a strangethingto say, for ... Marxridicule[s]ethicallanguageas nonsense....
Nevertheless, despite his contemptuousrejectionof ethical terms, Marx stands out as among
the imposingethical personalitiesof moderntimes. His action was more expressive than his
word. He became the symbol of the intellectualwho has not succumbedto either class or
organizationalpressures."
63. Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours, p. 45.
64. Thomas Sowell, Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (New York: William Morrow,
1985), p. 49.
65. Robert0. Keohaneand Joseph S. Nye, Jr., " 'Powerand Interdependence'Revisited,"
International Organization 41 (Autumn 1987), p. 72.
66. Robert0. Keohane,AfterHegemony(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1984),
p. 127.
420 InternationalOrganization
to the classical idealist tradition), "the concept of regime fit nicely into a
frameworkthat stressed the nonfungibilityof power across various issue
areas. For neorealists, it provided a handy vehicle for exploring the limits
of cooperation in an inherently conflictual world."67The diversity within
the regime-mindedscholarlycommunityis capturednicely by a comparison
of the statement of Puchala and Hopkins cited above ("Statesmen nearly
always perceive themselves as constrained by principles, norms, and
rules... .") with a more recent assertion by Krasner: "Actors are rarely
constrained by internationalprinciples, norms, rules, or decision-making
procedures."68Neorealists tend to see regimes as having an impact in situations in which "moralitypays," even if short-rungains must be sacrificed
for the sake of long-term payoffs. Globalists emphasize the potential for
regimes to evoke even self-sacrificingbehavior. But neither the neorealists
and globalistsnor the classical idealists such as QuincyWrightare oblivious
to the harsh realities of life. Wrightacknowledgesthat there are sharpdisagreementsamong scholars about the importanceand properrole of ethical
considerationsin internationalpolitics, but he concludes that "none of these
antinomies seems necessary. Ethics and expediency are separated by no
such sharp lines. Ethics is long-run expediency and expediency is shortterm ethics.'"69
In sum, the differences between these schools of thought in the field of
internationalpolitics, although admittedlysharp in some respects, are relatively subtle when it comes to the role of ethical considerationsand moral
constraints. Ultimately, realists, radicals, idealists, and interdependence/regimeanalysts all concede that while self-interestedbehaviorpredominates, behavior inspiredby norms and ethical standardsor constrainedby
moral values is by no means absent. The moral skeptics do not deny the
potential importance of normative values, and those who emphasize the
impact of values are not such giddy optimists that their opinions regarding
the importanceof ideas and ideals deserve to be ignored.
Some regimeanalysts arguethat "moralitypays" and stipulatethat norms
can be expected to have an impact when adherenceto them involves some
reward, at least in the long run. But behaviorof this kind is quasi-moralat
best. As Beitz points out, "The idea that considerationsof advantageare
distinct from those of morality, and that it might be rational to allow the
latter to overridethe former, seems to be at the core of our intuitionsabout
morality."70Although moral skeptics and idealists both allow for the pos67. J. MartinRochester, "The Rise and Fall of InternationalOrganizationas a Field of
Study," International Organization 40 (Autumn 1986), pp. 799-800.
68. StephenD. Krasner,StructuralConfict (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1985),
p. 60.
69. Quincy Wright, A Study of International Relations (New York: Appleton, 1955), p. 448.
70. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations, p. 16. See also William K. Frankena,
Ethics, 2d ed. (EnglewoodCliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,1973),p. 19. Frankenamakes the same
point: "Prudentialismor living wholly by the principleof enlightenedself-love just is not a
kind of morality."
Internationalwar 421
sibilitythat moralvalues can have an importantimpacton politicalbehavior,
neitherspecifies the circumstancesunderwhich such values may evoke truly
altruistic or group-orientedbehavior (as opposed to egotistic behavior) or
under which we can expect ethical constraints to override egotistic calculations.
William Nelson asserts that the best argument against egoism (and in
defense of the possibilityof altruism)was writtenby Joseph Butlerin 1726.71
And yet models based on assumptionsof rationalityand egotistic "expected
utility" calculations do confront quite persistent anomalies. Howard Margolis asks, for example, "Why should the voter accept anythingmore than
trivialinconvenience to vote when even in a very close election, the chance
that his particularvote would make a difference in the outcome is itself
trivial?" and then observes, "Yet most people do vote, and in general the
propensityto vote increases with education.''72 Analogous anomaliesexist
regardingcontributionsto public radio and television stations; volunteers
for military service, especially in times of war; and, internationally,the
outpouringof contributionsfrom governmentsas well as privateindividuals
when famineoccurs (such as in Ethiopia)or when hurricanesor earthquakes
hit distantcountries. Such anomaliesare sufficientlynumerousfor Margolis
to conclude that "no economist would deny the possibility of altruismin
rational choice....
In recent years, efforts to incorporate altruistic pref-
erences withinthe conventionalframeworkhave become fairlycommon."73
The argumenthere is that the disappearanceof slavery and recent trends in
internationalwarfaresuggestthatethicalconstraintsandmoralprogresshave
had an importantimpacton internationalpolitics. Despite some appearances
to the contrary,this argumentis not fundamentallyincongruentwith any of
several importantdiverse approachesto internationalpolitics. Like economists, the adherentsto these approachesto internationalpoliticsmakeefforts
to incorporatethe impact of ethical constraints into their frameworks. In
fact, these efforts are sufficiently consistent that they can accurately be
described as "fairly common."
The demise of slavery and the coming end of war?
Ending slavery, at least within a given state, is a fundamentallydifferent
problem than ending war. A state's decision makers can choose to end
slavery within state borders. In this case, it is unlikely that another state
71. WilliamNelson, "Introduction:MoralPrinciplesand MoralTheory," in KennethKipnis
and Diana T. Meyers, eds., Political Realism and International Morality (Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 1987),p. 7. Joseph Butler'swork was entitledFifteen Sermonsupon Human
Nature.
72. Howard Margolis, Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1982),p. 17.
73. Ibid., p. 11.
422 InternationalOrganization
would be motivated to compel the abolitionist state to change its position.
But because of the securitydilemmain the internationalsystem and because
of the lack of a centralauthorityto enforce adherenceeven to widely agreed
upon norms, an "aggressive" state could, if it chose, put its "peace-loving"
counterpartin situations in which it has only the choice between fightinga
war and ceasing to exist. For this reason, there is no developing consensus
thatfightingan internationalwar is ethicallyunacceptable.In fact, the emergence of such a consensus might well be interpretedas regression, rather
thanmoralprogress,if it led to "good" states (andpeople) meekly submitting
to dominationby "bad" states that establisheda permanentpeace based on
tyranny and perhaps on social and cultural bigotry (anti-Semitism,white
supremacy, and the like).
If internationalwar is to disappear as a result of moral progress (as,
arguably, slavery did), ethical constraints will need to become sufficiently
effective thatpoliticalleaderswill refrainfrominitiating(ratherthanfighting)
wars. The most importantbarrierto the eliminationof internationalwar will
be the absence of a legitimate central authorityto enforce antiwarnorms,
even if they do become widespread.However, as moralprogresscontinues,
one can logically expect a decline in the numberof politicalleaders who will
be inclined to develop deceptive strategies and rationalizationsin defense
of war initiation, as well as a decline in the numberof those who will be
inclined to accept those rationalizations.This will not totally eliminate the
possibility that wars will be initiatedin genuine attemptsat preemption.But
in a world in which ethical norms against war initiation are very strong
(strong enough to provide a basis for a regime, perhaps), suspicions that
one's state is about to be the victim of an attack will eventually lose their
logical base, and accusationsregardingimminentattackswill lose theircredibility. For the sake of argument,let's say that I am a nationalleader. If I
know that my counterpartssincerely believe that it is ethically unacceptable
to initiate an internationalwar and if I also know that they know that I feel
the same way, reciprocalfears of surpriseattack will be much less likely to
escalate uncontrollably.On the other hand, if I do not feel personallybound
by ethical constraintsregardingwar initiation,my chargesthat my opponent
is about to attack will lack plausibilityif I am extraordinarilyunusualin my
rejection of those constraints. Lacking a plausibledefense of my actions, I
will be likely to decide that the onus on a war initiatoris so great that no
gain from startinga war will compensate for the political costs involved.
Connections between the demise of slavery
and the end of war
Although slavery was ultimately an intrastate matter, it did also, like
internationalwar, involve interstaterelations. The slave trade, as we have
seen, especially in the Western hemisphere, was an issue in international
Internationalwar 423
politics. Slavery, then, and its demise were (like war) affected by foreign
policies and by relationshipsbetween states withinthe internationalpolitical
arena.
More important, there are logical connections between the practice of
slavery and the philosophical rationalizationsdeveloped in its defense on
the one handand the practiceof war and its associated philosophicaldefense
on the other, and these connections suggest that if one comes to seem
outmodedbecause of developmentsin ethical thought,the other mightsoon
suffer the same fate. Slavery and internationalwar both involve the use of
bruteforce to controlbehaviorand extractbenefits. If it is no longerethically
acceptable for one human being to use brute force to extract economic
benefitsfrom another, then a decreasingtolerancefor states that "enslave"
their counterpartsby means of militaryconquest can be expected to follow.
(Indeed, it already has to some degree.) Slave systems often rested to an
importantextent on invidiouscomparisonsbetween groupsof humanbeings.
Centuriesbefore slavery was abolished, Christiansgenerallyrefrainedfrom
enslaving each other, and Moslems typically enslaved only infidels. Rationalizations of slavery in the New World were based on the assumptionthat
the black race was inferior.Rationalizationsin defense of internationalwars,
too, often dependon invidiouscomparisonsbetweengroupsof humanbeings,
on "us versus them" distinctions. Colonial wars of conquest, for example,
were justified as necessary for the purpose of spreadingcivilization (or restoringlaw and order)to inferiorpeoples. Even internationalwars between
"modern" states have been based on invidious comparisons,those devised
by Adolf Hitler being the most infamous.
Ultimately, the notion from the Enlightenmentthat all men are created
equal underminedthe credibilityof the invidious comparisonsbetween categories of humanbeings on which slave systems were based. Relatednotions
about the value of human life have, in contemporarytimes, undermined
rationalizationsfor legal killing. Currently,for example, South Africa and
the United States are the only industrializedWestern countries in which
some criminals are executed. (Dueling has disappearedeven in these two
states.) Egalitarianideals, perhaps,will likewise ultimatelyrenderuntenable
the roughly analogous invidious comparisonsand rationalizationsfor legal
killing which serve as justificationsfor the initiationof internationalwar.74
Evidence regarding trends in attitudes
about international war
If analyzed over a period of centuries or even within the confines of the
currentcentury, importantchanges about the extent to which, and against
whom, war is justified can be clearly identified. Evan Luard, for example,
74. Fred Riggs broughtto my attentionthis potentiallogical connectionbetween the demise
of slavery and the possible coming end of war.
424 InternationalOrganization
in his analysis of War in International Society, observes that from 1400to
1559, war was "not only seen as a gloriousenterprisebut as a reliablesource
of material reward....
War was everywhere regarded as a normal activity
in which all the rulers of the age might take part and if possible excel." In
the next epoch (1559-1648), war was considered ".an essentially normal
feature of human existence which must be expected to continue." In the
"age of nationalism" (1789-1917), "there began to be . . . almost for the
first time, a sense that . . . war was increasinglyrequiredto be justified."'75
Concerningthe current century in particular,Morgenthaunotes the following:
The attitude toward war itself has reflected an ever increasingawareness on the part of most statesmen that certain moral limitationsrestrict
the use of war as an instrument of foreign policy.
. .
. The student of
the differentcollections of diplomaticdocuments concerningthe origins
of the First World War is struck by the hesitancy on the part of almost
all responsible statesmen, with the exception perhapsof those of Vienna and St. Petersburg,to take steps that might irrevocablylead to
war. This hesitancy and the almost general dismay among the statesmen when war finally proved to be inevitable contrasts sharplywith the
deliberatecare with which, as late as the nineteenthcentury, wars were
plannedand incidents fabricatedfor the purpose of makingwar inevitable and placing the blame for startingit on the other side.76
The decision makers involved in the crisis leading to World War I were
showingthe signs of being affectedby a significantchangein ethical attitudes
about war. Michael Howard notes that "before 1914 war was almost universallyconsideredan acceptable, perhapsan inevitableandfor manypeople
a desirableway of settling internationaldifferences."77John Muellerargues
that WorldWarI createda revulsionagainstwarsandthat, suddenly, "'peace
advocates were a decided majority."78
Despite this obvious changein attitudesaboutwar, WorldWarII occurred.
Mueller feels that "after World War I the only person left in Europe who
was willing to risk anothertotal war was Adolf Hitler. He had a vision and
carriedit out with ruthless and single-mindeddetermination."79Surely this
is carryinga "greatman" theory to an unnecessaryand implausibleextreme.
If Hitler had been the only person left with the determinationto initiate a
majorwar, peace would have been preserved. His country supportedhim,
75. Evan Luard,Warin InternationalSociety (London:I. B. Taurus, 1986),pp. 330 and 336.
76. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 231.
77. MichaelHoward,"The Causes of War," WilsonQuarterly8 (Summer1984),p. 92; cited
in John Mueller,"The Essential Irrelevanceof Nuclear Weapons," InternationalSecurity 13
(Fall 1988),p. 75.
78. Mueller,"The Essential Irrelevanceof Nuclear Weapons," p. 75.
79. Ibid., pp. 75-76.
Internationalwar 425
despite widespreaddoubts among his fellow citizens. What can be argued
more plausibly is that his country had suffered a concatenationof events
that is unlikely to be repeated. Germanyhad lost World War I, had been
officiallyblamed for startingit, and was presented with a large bill for reparations. In the early 1920s, Germany suffered one of the worst bouts of
inflationof any majorpower in the history of the world. The economy had
just about recoveredfrom that traumawhen the GreatDepressionoccurred.
Only under those extremely unusual and extraordinarilytrying circumstances did the Germansturn to a man like Hitlerand take the steps leading
to anotherworld war. If the precedingevents had not occurred,WorldWar
I might have been the last, in which case the world would be in its sixth
straightdecade of peace among majorpowers.
As things have turnedout, two world wars have solidifieda clear "transformation"of traditionalattitudes about war. In the currentera, according
to Luard, for the first time, there is "an almost universal sense that the
deliberatelaunchingof a war could now no longer be justified."80Morgenthau, the quintessentialrealist, expresses similar sentiments. It is only in
the last half of this century, he observes, that "the avoidanceof war itselfthat is, of any war, has become an aim of statecraft." There has been, he
concludes, a "fundamentalchange in the attitudeabout war."81
Evidence regarding trends in the incidence of war
It is relatively easy to establish, then, that "moralprogress" has brought
about a change in attitudes about internationalwar. It is more difficult to
demonstratethat this change has had an impact on the incidence of war. In
fact, it must be admittedthat some historicaldata are not supportiveof the
idea that internationalwar is on the verge of disappearance.WorldWars I
and II create an impressionthat the currentcentury is extraordinarilywarprone, and in some respects that impression is accurate. The world wars
involved more battle deaths than did any previous internationalwars (since
1495):seven million and thirteenmillion soldiers were killed in WorldWars
I and II,respectively, and civilianlosses were also in the millions.According
to Jack Levy, the first "Great Power war" to result in at least one million
battle deaths was the "ThirtyYears' War-Swedish-French" from 1635to
1648. No other Great Power war in modern history, until the world wars,
resulted in as many as two million battle deaths.82Moreover, Melvin Small
and J. David Singer reportthat not only were WorldWars I and lI the two
most lethal wars in modern times, but the third and fourth most deadly
80.
81.
82.
Press
Luard, War in International Society, p. 365.
Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, pp. 228-32.
Jack Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495-1975 (Lexington: University
of Kentucky, 1983), p. 88.
426 InternationalOrganization
internationalwars in terms of battle deaths-namely, the conflicts in Korea
and Vietnam-have also occurredin this century.83
Nevertheless, the impressionthat the world is getting progressivelymore
war-pronemay be mistaken.Althoughthe worldwars were extremelylethal,
Levy asserts that "there has been a relative absence of GreatPower war in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when it has been underway only
about one-sixth of the time. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, by contrast, Great Power war was underwayabout 80 percent of
the time."84When Small and Singer examined the 165 years from 1816 to
1980 to determinewhether "war [is] on the increase, as many scholars as
well as laymen of our generationhave been inclinedto believe," they stated
that "the answer would seem to be an unambiguousnegative. Whetherwe
look at the numberof wars, their severity, or their magnitude,there is no
significanttrend upward or down over the last 165 years. 85 Even more
strikingin light of the thrust of this article is the absence of wars between
major powers since World War II. As K. J. Holsti noted in 1986, "By
historical standardsa forty-one year period without an intra-GreatPower
war is unprecedented."86Similarly, Robert Jervis has observed that "the
most strikingcharacteristicof the postwarworldis just that-it can be called
'postwar' because the majorpowers have not fought each other since 1945.
Such a lengthy period of peace among the most powerful states is unprec'
edented. "87
The accuracy of such assertions is debatable. The United States fought
against China in the Korean War, and if that is counted as a Great Power
83. MelvinSmallandJ. DavidSinger,Resortto Arms(BeverlyHills, Calif.:SagePublications,
1982), p. 102. See also CharlesGochmanand Zeev Maoz, "MilitarizedInterstateDisputes,
1816-1976,"Journalof ConflictResolution28 (December1984),p. 613; and J. David Singer,
"NormativeConstraintson Hostility Between States," Journal of Peace Research 23 (September 1986),p. 211. Gochmanand Maoz point out that "the years since 1976appearto have
been highly disputatious.There have been seven interstatewars and a large numberof very
volatile subwarconflicts." It is this kindof evidence that leads to conclusionssuch as Singer's:
"Premises of unbridledsovereignty clearly remain in the saddle, and when allegedly 'vital
interests' are at stake, it is difficult to observe much evidence of adherence to the more
constrainingprinciplesembodiedin either 'positive' law-as expressed in the Charterof the
UnitedNations, the statuteof the InternationalCourtof Justiceandthe hundredsof conventions
and treaties now on the books-or the 'natural'law found in the more scholarlyliteratureon
the subject."
84. Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System, p. 130.
85. Smalland Singer,Resort to Arms, p. 141.This statementis based in parton analyses of
data which are "normalized"to take into account the numberof people and the numberof
states in the internationalsystem. However, even the non-normalizeddata reveal no clear
trend. The Iran-Iraqwar mightchange the outcome of such analyses.
86. K. J. Holsti, "The Horsemenof the Apocalypse:At the Gate, Detoured,or Retreating?"
International Studies Quarterly 30 (December 1986), p. 369.
87. Robert Jervis, "The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons," InternationalSecurity 13
(Fall 1988),p. 80. See also Mueller, "The EssentialIrrelevanceof NuclearWeapons," p. 76,
in which a similarpoint is made: "Since 1945, . . . warfareof all sorts seems to have lost its
appeal within the developed world. With only minor and fleeting exceptions (the Falklands
Warof 1982,the Soviet invasions of Hungaryand Czechoslovakia),there have been no wars
amongthe 48 wealthiestcountriesin all that time."
Internationalwar 427
war,88the currentperiodof peace (from 1953to 1989)is only thirty-sixyears
long. If the war between Russia and Japanin 1904-1905is not counted as
a Great Power war,89then the currentperiod of peace amonggreat powers
is not "unprecedented." The forty-three years (1871-1914) between the
Franco-PrussianWarand WorldWar I were also free of GreatPower wars.
That is an ominous precedent, culminatingas it did in the bloodiest war in
history up to that time. Mightthe currenthiatus between wars amonggreat
powers be a preludeto an analogous,even more catacylsmicconfrontation?
The earlierprolongedperiodof peace amonggreatpowersafterthe FrancoPrussianWarmay have inspiredNormanAngell in his famous (or notorious)
The Great Illusion to declare (in a mannerreminiscentof interdependence
analysts) that "not only is man fightingless, but he is using all forms of
physical compulsionless . .. because accumulatedevidence is pushinghim
more and more to the conclusion that he can accomplish more easily that
which he strives for by other means." Militaryforce, in Angell's view, had
become anachronistic:"Piracy was magnificent,doubtless, but it was not
business. We are preparedto sing about the Viking, but not to tolerate him
on the high seas....
Some of us who are quite prepared to give the soldier
his due place in poetry and legend and romance . . . are nevertheless in-
quiringwhether the time has not come to place him (or a good portion of
him) gently on the poetic shelf with the Viking."*
In 1981, thirty-sixyears after WorldWar II, WernerLevi in The Coming
End of War expressed similar sentiments. "Developed states," according
to Levi, "are unlikely to engage in modern war with each other directly.
The mutuallyreinforcingreasons are that their wars are too costly and that
they need each other for the fulfillmentof importantinterests which can be
most adequately achieved by nonviolent methods." Levi continues in this
vein by pointing out that when developing states have become more like
theirrichercounterparts,they too will refrainfromwarfor the same reasons.
He concludes that the likelihood of modern war is nearing the vanishing
point because "peaceful cooperationis no longera luxury. It is now a matter
of selfish nationalinterests."91
In 1913(the year the fourth edition of The Great Illusion was published),
Angell's optimismabout the obsolescing of internationalwar was based in
part on an argumentpointing out the possible relevance of the demise of
88. Both Levy in War in the Modern Great Power System and Small and Singer in Resort
to Arms categorizethe KoreanWaras a conflictbetween "great" or "major"powers.
89. It was not a Great Power war according to War in the Modern Great Power System, but
it was a war between majorpowers accordingto Resort to Arms.
90. NormanAngell, TheGreatIllutsion, 4th ed. (New York:KnickerbockerPress, 1913),pp.
268-69 and 294-95.
91. WernerLevi, The ComingEnd of War(Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications,1981),
pp. 15 and 94. Similarly,in "The Essential Irrelevanceof NuclearWeapons," p. 78, Mueller
declares that "as a form of activity, war in the developed world may be followingonce fashionableduelinginto obsolescence."
428 InternationalOrganization
slavery.92There are several reasons, in additionto Angell's tragicallypremature conclusion about internationalwar based on the analogy involving
slavery, to be cautious about the potential impact of moral progress on
internationalwar. For example, it is certainly possible that the period of
peace among majorpowers following WorldWar II is merely a predictable
oasis of stability in the "long cycle" of world leadershipwithin the global
political system. In this view, World War II produceda high concentration
of power and a new world leader (the United States) that had sufficient
resources at hand to provide the "public goods" that serve as a basis for
stability. (Therewere, for example, thirty-eightyears of peace amongmajor
powers after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.) However, in
previous phases, as George Modelski points out, the long cycle has always
involved a period of change and deteriorationin the position of the world's
leader, culminatingin anotherglobal war.93
In a similarvein, CharlesKegley and GregoryRaymondhave found that
norm-basedregimes may in fact have a visibly constrainingimpact on the
incidence of war in the global system, but this hopeful phenomenon,too, is
markedby periodicitiesand impermanence:"The historicalevidence indicates that . .. the formation of . .. international security regimes is ephem-
eral and is governed by a cyclical process."94
Furthermore,it is certainlypossible that the majorpowers of the contemporaryera have avoided wars against each other not because of the impact
of norms (however temporary)but because nuclear weapons make the potentialcosts of wars unacceptableon more rational,self-interestedgrounds.
Even the ratheridealisticallyinclinedSmalland Singerobserve in theirstudy
of militarizeddisputes from 1816 to 1977 that "the fact that the 20 major
versus majorconfrontationssince V-JDay have gone to neitherconventional
nor nuclearwar . .. strongly suggests that the nucleardeterrent,as clumsy
and fragile as it is, seems to exercise an inhibitingeffect."95The fact that
92. See Angell, TheGreatIllusion, p. 270, in which the authorstates: "Even the greatminds
of antiquitycould not believe the world would be an industriousone unless the great mass
were made industriousby the use of physicalforce-i.e., by slavery. . . . Had they been told
that the time would come when the worldwould work very much harderunderthe impulseof
... economicinterest,they wouldhave regardedsuch a statementas thatof a meresentimental
theorist."
93. George Modelski, "The Long Cycle of GlobalPolitics and the Nation-State,"Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (April 1978), pp. 214-35. See also George Modelski,
ed., ExploringLong Cycles (Boulder,Colo.: Lynne RiennerPublishers,1987).
94. CharlesW. Kegley, Jr., and GregoryA. Raymond,"NormativeConstraintson the Use
of Force Short of War," Journal of Peace Research 23 (September1986),p. 213. See also
CharlesW. Kegley, Jr., and GregoryA. Raymond,"InternationalLegal Norms and the Preservation of Peace, 1820-1964:Some Evidence and Bivariate Relationships,"International
Interactions8 (July 1981),p. 183, in which the authorsalso reportthat "the evidence clearly
shows that althoughthere has been a steady changein attitudesabout war, there has been no
change in the amountof war."
95. Melvin Small and J. David Singer, "Conflictin the InternationalSystem, 1816-1977:
HistoricalTrendsand Policy Futures,"in J. DavidSinger,ed., ExplainingWar(Beverly Hills,
Calif.: Sage Publications,1972),p. 77.
Internationalwar 429
formal allies of the superpowersbetween 1962 and 1980did not fight wars
or even engage in low-level militaryconflict with one another96and the fact
that no two formal allies of states with nuclear weapons and not allied to
each other fought wars againsteach otherfrom 1945to 198697may be further
testimonyto the inhibitingeffect of nuclearweapons ratherthan moralprogress.
Nuclear weapons and contemporary peace
A counterargumentmight begin with the observation that terrible devastation and "total war" had occurred long before the advent of nuclear
weapons. The Romans, for example, totally destroyedCarthagein the Third
Punic War. The Mongol invasion of the world of Islam in the thirteenth
century brought"the end of civilization" as the Moslems knew it. The city
of Merv and its inhabitantswere captured, and the subsequent slaughter
resultedin a reported 1.3 milliondeaths.98Hugalu,the grandsonof Genghis
Khan,enteredBaghdadin 1258A.D. and killeda reported800,000inhabitants.
Describingthis Mongol invasion, Durantobserves that, in general, "never
in history had a civilization sufferedso suddenly so devastatinga blow....
When [the Mongols'] bloody tide ebbed, it left behind it a fatally disrupted
economy, canals broken or choked, schools and librariesin ashes ... and
a population cut in half....
[This] turned Western Asia from world lead-
ership to destitution, from a hundredteeming and culturedcities in Syria,
Mesopotamia,Persia, the Caucasus, and Transoxianainto the poverty, disease, and stagnationof modern times."99
Despite such long-standingevidence that war has long been deadly on an
absolutely catastrophic scale, the contemporaryidea that the destructive
power of nuclear weapons has caused war to be avoided since WorldWar
II has many precedents, all of which, we now know, were mistaken. For
example,AlfredNobel predictedin the 1860sthathis dynamitewould "sooner
lead to peace than a thousand world conventions, [since] as soon as men
will find that in one instant whole armies can be utterlydestroyed, they will
surely abide in golden peace." Jules Verne asserted in 1904that "the submarinemay be the cause of bringingbattle to stoppagealtogether,for fleets
will become useless, and as other war materialcontinues to improve, war
will become impossible."'??Levy notes that "history provides a numberof
optimisticforecasts of the end of wardue to the developmentof the 'ultimate'
96. Erich Weede, "Extended Deterrence by SuperpowerAlliance," Journal of Conflict
Resolution27 (June 1980),pp. 231-54.
97. James Lee Ray, "The Impact of Nuclear Weaponson the Escalationof International
Conflicts," paper presented at the annual meeting of the InternationalStudies Association,
March1986.
98. Durant, The Age of Faith, p. 339.
99. Ibid., pp. 340-41.
100. Cited in ChristopherCerf and Victor Navasky, The Experts Speak: The Definitive
Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 254-55.
430
International Organization
weapon, the very power of which renders it unusable. This argument has
been made with respect to artillery, smokeless powder, the machine gun,
and poison gas."101Mueller, with perhaps the most germane example, points
out that after 1918 there was a widespread belief that the next war might
well destroy the human race.'02 Surely, then, Luard is correct when he
concludes: "There is little evidence in history that the existence of supremely
destructive weapons alone is capable of deterring war. If the development
of bacteriological weapons, poison gas, nerve gases, and other chemical
armaments did not deter war before 1939, it is not easy to see why nuclear
weapons should do so now." 103 In light of these previous errors regarding
the war-inhibiting effect of the "latest" in military technology, why should
we believe those who currently attribute peace among major powers to the
destructive capability of nuclear weapons?
A close examination of crises in which states with nuclear weapons have
been involved since 1945 will only serve to reinforce skepticism about the
alleged peace-producing effect of nuclear weapons. The analyses by
A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler of several post-World War II crises
lead them to conclude that "non-nuclear powers [have] defied, attacked,
and defeated nuclear powers" and that "when we compared the behavior
of countries in conflicts where nuclear weapons were available with those
of countries in conflicts where nuclear powers could not possibly have been
involved, we found no evidence at all that countries are more cautious when
conflicts have the potential to escalate to nuclear war."'04 Kugler's subsequent analysis of extreme crises since 1945 shows that conventional superiority, rather than nuclear capability, has been a better predictor of the
outcome of those conflicts. 105 Paul Huth and Bruce Russett conclude on the
basis of an analysis of twenty-five cases in the nuclear era that possession
of nuclear weapons made only a "marginal contribution" to successful deterrence.106 Finally, Charles Gochman and Zeev Maoz, having analyzed
some 960 serious militarized disputes that occurred between 1816 and 1976,
assert that "during the nuclear era, major power participation in militarized
disputes has actually increased, relative to the proportion of interstate membership that they constitute" and that "it is not appropriate to view the
nuclear era as somehow unique with regard to conflict interactions between
101. Jack Levy, "Military Power, Alliances, Technology: An Analysis of Some Structural
Determinants of International War Among Great Powers," Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1976, p. 552.
102. John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York:
Basic Books, forthcoming); cited in Mueller, "The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons."
103. Luard, War in International Society, p. 396.
104. A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1980), p. 176.
105. Jacek Kugler, "Terror Without Deterrence," Journal of Conflict Resolution 28 (September 1984), p. 479.
106. Paul Huth and Bruce Russett, "What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to
1980," World Politics 36 (July 1984), p. 523.
Internationalwar 431
states."107 If we add to all this relatively systematic evidence Morton Halperin's more intuitively based conclusion that in nineteen key cases since
1945, "nuclear weapons have never been central to the outcome of a criSiS," 108 the case in supportof the idea that nuclear weapons have been the
key element in preserving peace among major powers since 1945 stands
revealed as shaky at best.
If, nevertheless, we make a special effort to be fair to proponentsof the
"peace throughnuclearweapons" modelandadmitfor the sake of discussion
that the possibilityof a nuclearholocausthas madethe majorpower decision
makers more cautious, we could still argue, plausibly, that moral progress
in the form of a rising aversion to war has been a necessary intervening
variablebetween the existence of those horribleweapons and the peaceful
outcome of all crises among major powers since 1945. This is to say that
the aversion to war based on moralprinciplesis not merely epiphenomenal
or spuriouslyrelated to those peaceful outcomes. In other words, if moral
progresshad not occurred,thereis historicalevidence to suggest thatnuclear
weapons would have been used again since 1945.As John Lewis Gaddishas
pointed out, "A pattern of caution in the use of nuclear weapons did not
develop solely . . . from the prospect of retaliation.As early as 1950, at a
time when the Soviet Union had only just tested an atomic bomb and had
only the most problematicmethods of deliveringit, the United States nonetheless effectively ruled out the use of its own atomic weapons in Korea
because of the opposition of its allies and the fear of an adverse reaction in
the world at large." Gaddis also reports that when aides to President Eisenhower suggested the use of atomic weapons at Dien Bien Phu in 1954,
his reactionwas: "You boys must be crazy. We can't use those awful things
againstAsians for the second time in less thanten years. My God."109Hugalu
might not have been so squeamish.
Finally, the existence of nuclearweapons fails to account fully for peace
in the modernera because those weapons are only tangentiallyrelevant, at
most, to two importantdimensionsof that peace: (1) the end of colonialism
and (2) the completeabsence of war, in the modernera as well as historically,
between "democratic" states.
Ethical inhibitions against "colonialism"
Colonialism, at least of the old-fashioned, straightforward,formal type,
has gone out of style. Powerful states no longer set out to conquer new
colonies, nor for the most part do they fightwars to hold on to them. There
are obvious exceptions. The invasion by the United States of Grenadain
107. Gochmanand Maoz, "MilitarizedInterstateDisputes," pp. 613 and 615.
108. MortonHalperin,Nuclear Fallacy (Cambridge,Mass.: Ballinger,1987),p. 46.
109.JohnLewis Gaddis,"TheLong Peace: Elementsof Stabilityin the PostwarInternational
System," International Security 10 (Spring 1986), p. 137.
432 InternationalOrganization
1983mightbe labeled a colonialist venture;it could also reasonablybe said
The Soviet invasion of
to have representeda "collapse of legal norms."'110
the Chinese to solidify
steps
by
Afghanistan,Frenchinterventionsin Africa,
the
United States against
by
wars
staged
the
proxy
their hold on Tibet, and
might all be
Kampuchea
against
Union
the
Soviet
the Sandinistas and by
categorizedas "colonialism." But the almost universalrecognitionthat the
U.S. operationin Grenadadid violate norms, as well as the relatively quick
withdrawalof Americantroops, the failureof even the lengthy and zealous
campaignby the United States to dislodge the Sandinistas,and the more or
less analogous frustrationproduced by the prolonged Soviet effort in Afghanistanare all straws in the wind, suggestingthat Axelrod is justified in
normsagainst. .. colonialismare strong.""'I
his conclusionthat "international
Puchala and Hopkins elaborate on this point that a change in values has
been at the heartof this modificationin the behaviorof strongstates in their
was
relationshipswith weakerones: "By the 1970sdominance-subordination
considered an illegitimate mode of internationalrelations, alien rule had
become anathema, [and] economic exploitation was condemned and attacked....
Colonization is no longer considered internationally legitimate,
and currentnormsof behaviorprescribedecolonizationjust as emphatically
as earlier norms prescribedcolonization.""112
In this era of massive internationaldebts in many ThirdWorldcountries,
it may also be relevantto point out in attemptto assess the strengthof norms
against "colonialism" (and the use of militaryforce by the strong against
the weak) that "the most powerful states today have the same interest as
theirpredecessorsin the nineteenthcenturyin ensuringthe promptpayment
of their inter-state debts" but that, according to Luard, "armed action to
secure such payments, which was relativelycommona centuryago, is today
unknown.'" 3 In some cases, such as Brazil, debtors today may have sufficient military strengthto render them relatively invulnerableto intimidation, and this (ratherthan ethical constraints)may account for the absence
of militaryattemptsby strongstates to forcibly collect paymentsfrom Third
Worldcountries. But many debtor nations are neitherso militarilyimposing
nor so invulnerableto relatively painless (for the prospective collector of
debts) militarytactics such as a blockade, which was also quite commonly
used a century ago. In such cases, the absence of attempts to use military
tactics to intimidateThird World states that fall behind in their payments
might plausibly be attributedto the decreasing legitimacy of such actions
now as opposed to a century ago.
In general, there are numerous opportunitiesfor the powerful states to
take advantageof their militarymight against the large numberof smaller,
110. Maurice Waters, "The Invasion of Grenada, 1983, and the Collapse of Legal Norms,"
Journal of Peace Research 23 (September 1986), pp. 229-46.
111. Axelrod, "An Evolutionary Approach," p. 1110.
112. Puchala and Hopkins, "International Regimes," p. 257.
113. Luard, War in International Society, pp. 393-94.
Internationalwar 433
weaker states in the system today, opportunitieswhich go unexploited so
consistently that it is easy to forget they exist. "Decolonization in parts of
the Third World and particularlyAfrica," Robert Jackson argues, "has
resulted in the emergence of 'quasi-states,' which are independentlargely
by internationalcourtesy. . This bias in the constitutiverules of the sovereignty game today and for the first time in modern internationalhistory
arguablyfavors the weak. If internationaltheory is to account for this novel
situation it must acknowledge the possibility that moralityand legality can
...
be independentof power in internationalrelations.""14
Moderncommunicationsmay reinforcethis bias in favor of the militarily
weak, as well as the relevantethical norms. Warscovered by the news media
and shown on television mightbe moredifficultto fightandwin (andtherefore
may even be less likely to occur). Spanier has noted that "big Western
democraticnations have tended to lose small wars since 1945."The reason,
he feels, is that "when democracies use force, they cannot do so as they
did a hundredyears ago. The press and the television reporton every facet
of hostilities, no matterhow embarrassingor politicallydamagingit may be
to the government.""15 Perhaps the media are not quite that zealous to
embarrassgovernmentsin democratic states, but the barringof media personnel from the U.S. operationsin Grenadain 1983suggests that American
decision makers,at least, do see television coverageof invasionsandfighting
as a problem. It is a problem that probablycould not be avoided in more
extended and extensive militaryactions.
The Soviets have not apparently had to deal with television-generated
opposition to their war in Afghanistan,even though their fate there is increasingly reminiscentof that met by the Americans in Vietnam. (If, as is
widely anticipated, the government they leave behind falls after their departure,their experience will be similarin anotherimportantrespect.) However, even if "perestroika" does not create pressures leading to "democracy" in the Western sense of the word, is it Panglossianto expect that
"glasnost" will develop to the point that the Soviet government will be
unable to keep any future prolongedconflicts of the Afghantype out of the
public eye?
In any case, the technologies associated with television are becoming
progressively less expensive and more widely accessible. They will surely
permeatethe globe with greaterintensity in the coming decades, makingit
likely that wars will be more visible and more difficultto keep out of sight
everywhere. And wars between large, powerful states fighting obviously
smaller, weaker ones can be counted on to look particularlyunappealingon
television.
114. Robert H. Jackson, "Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory: International Jurisprudence and the Third World," International Organization 41 (Autumn 1987),
Abstract.
115. Spanier, Games Nations Play, p. 277.
434 InternationalOrganization
Distance may well have been crucial to the maintenanceof slavery in the
New Worldlong after strong norms againstit developed within Europe. "A
'Braudelian'sense about the difficultyof overcomingspatialdistance is ...
necessary to understandingthe smooth functioningof the slave system,"
according to Seymour Drescher. "By the mid-seventeenthcentury, when
English subjects began systematically to buy and sell other human beings
on a large scale, neither chattel slavery nor inheritedbondage existed any
longer within the boundaries of their own land....
The world was made
safe for Northwest colonial slavery by the tyrannyof distance."116
If Drescher is correct, we might infer that televised coverage, say, of
slaves in the fields of the New World, broadcast in the Old World, would
have hastened slavery's demise, eliminatingin effect the element of distance
that was necessary to its survival. Televised newscasts of wars in the future
could conceivably reduce their viability as instrumentsof policy. The contributionthat moderncommunicationstechnologies can make to decreasing
the "distance" between the citizenryand what a country's soldiersare doing
(and having done to them) on battlefields could significantlyaugment the
potential impact that ethical constraintscan have on the incidence of internationalwar in the future.
Democratic values and international war
A pocket of peace, so to speak, in the contemporaryglobal system which
seems ratherclearly unrelatedto any hypotheticalinhibitingeffect that nuclear weapons may have encompasses all the industrialized"democratic"
countries in the world. Virtuallyall of Western Europe, the United States,
Canada,Japan, Australia, and New Zealand "contain a populationof over
800 million, spread over a geographicarea equal to nearly half of the land
of the NorthernHemisphere." Bruce Russett and Harvey Starrdeclare that
"not only has there been no war among [these] countries, but there has been
little expectation or preparation for war among them, either....
It is a
larger'zone of peace' than has ever existed before."117 Not only have these
countries not fought wars in the contemporaryera, but as R. J. Rummel
points out, "wars simply have not occurred between libertariansystems"
(by which he clearly means democratic, open, liberal, or pluralistic systems)."18Similarly,as a result of their analysis of the relationshipbetween
regime types and internationalconflict between 1816and 1976, Zeev Maoz
and NasrinAbdolaliconcludethat "thereis a significantrelationshipbetween
the regime characteristicsof a dyad and the probabilityof conflict involve116. Drescher, Capitalism and Antislavery, pp. 27-29.
117. Bruce Russett and Harvey Starr, WorldPolitics (New York: Freeman, 1985), pp. 409-10.
118. R. J. Rummel, Understanding Conflict and War, vol. 4 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage
Publications, 1979), p. 279.
Internationalwar 435
ment of that dyad: democracies rarely clash with one another, and never
fight one another in war.""19
Even if it is true that there has never been an internationalwar between
democratic states, it is difficultat best to establish that this zone of peace
results from a systematic tendency for democratic states to be less warprone. As Michael Howard indicates, "The transition to democracy, as
Clausewitz was the first thinker to recognize, so far from abolishing war,
brought into it an entirely new dimension of violent passion.
. .
. Democra-
cies from Franceat the end of the eighteenthcenturyup to the United States
in the middle of the twentieth, have failed to live up to the expectations of
eighteenth century liberal thinkers."120 Democratic states have been involved in a lot of wars, and they have not always been the passive victims
of aggressive, dictatorialstates, either.
Small and Singer reportthat democraticstates were involved in nineteen
interstatewars between 1816and 1965and that they either initiatedor were
involved on the side of the initiatorin eleven of those conflicts.'2'Smalland
Singer,Steve Chan,andErichWeede all findthatthe rateof warinvolvement
of democratic states does not differ markedlyfrom that of other kinds of
states.122 But evidence regardingthe rateof warinvolvementfor democracies
does not detract from the potential significanceof the apparentlack of war
that democracieshave experienced in their interactionswith each other. In
fact, if democracies in general are not less war-pronethan other types of
states, that makes the absence of war between democraticstates more remarkablebecause it is less likely to have happenedby chance.
Small and Singer argue that it is a relative lack of geographiccontiguity
between democratic states that accounts for the absence of war between
them.'23The argumentwas credible for the time period covered by their
data, that is, up to 1965.But since then, there has been a substantialgrowth
in the numberof democraticstates, with many of them now borderingupon
each other and with several of them emergingfrom among the traditionally
war-proneand most powerfuland importantstates in the world.'24Literally
119. Zeev Maoz and Nasrin Abdolali, "Regime Types and International Conflict, 1816-1976,"
Journal of Conflict Resolution 33 (March 1989).
120. Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (London: Temple Smith, 1978), p.
131.
121. Melvin Small and J. David Singer, "The War-Proneness of Democratic Regimes,
1816-1965," Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 1 (Summer 1976), p. 66.
122. See Steve Chan, "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall ... Are the Freer Countries More
Pacific?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 28 (December 1984), pp. 617-48; and Erich Weede,
"Democracy and War Involvement," Journal of Conflict Resolution 28 (December 1984), pp.
649-64. R. J. Rummel disagrees with this view; see, for example, his article "A Test of
Libertarian Propositions on Violence," Journal of Conflict Resolution 29 (September 1985),
pp. 419-55.
123. Small and Singer, "The War-Proneness," p. 67.
124. See Michael Doyle, "Liberal Institutions and International Ethics," in Kipnis and
Meyers, Political Realism and International Morality, pp. 192-94. By Doyle's count, there are
currently some forty "liberal" states in the world, and he excludes such admittedly debatable
cases as Brazil, the Philippines, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and South Korea.
436 InternationalOrganization
thousandsof democratic-dyad-yearshave passed withouta war or even the
anticipationof or preparationfor war.
As Russett and Starracknowledge, these peacful relationshipsmay have
developed because the democratic states are extremely rich, because they
tradeextensively with each other, or because they have unitedin opposition
to a common enemy, the communiststates.'25But the richest states in past
epochs have always been the most powerful and the most war-prone,and
the fact that Europecontainedmost of the richeststates in the worldcertainly
did not make it a relativelypeacefulcontinentbefore 1945.Both the classical
liberals and the modern interdependenceanalysts are prone to argue that
the more economic contact there is between nations, the more likely it is
that their relationshipswill be peaceful. But, as Gaddis has pointed out,
"These are pleasantthingsto believe, but there is remarkablylittle historical
evidence to validate them," since the ten bloodiest interstate wars in the
last century and a half "grew out of conflicts between countries that either
directly adjoined one another or were involved actively in trade with one
another."''26Furthermore,Russett and Starr have analyzed economic relationships between democratic industrialstates up to 1985 and have discovered that "internationaltradeand investmentseem highby the standards
of recent decades but not especially high by historicalstandards."And so,
logically enough, they have concluded that "the current level of such ties
is not so high, according to the standards of other times or with other
countries,that we can cite it as a majorcause of peace in recent decades."127
Finally, if havinga commonenemy is a key to peace, why has the opposition
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO), the CentralTreaty Organization(CENTO),and the SoutheastAsia TreatyOrganization(SEATO)
plus several bilateral alliances not prevented war (and other lower-level
militaryconflict) between socialist states, such as that between the Soviet
Union and Hungary,Czechoslovakia,China,and Afghanistan,betweenChina
and Vietnam, between Vietnam and Kampuchea,and so forth? (And, one
mightadd, why has it not preventedconflict between the United States and
the DominicanRepublic, Turkeyand Greece, and the United Kingdomand
Argentina?)
Possibly, then, it is shared democratic values, or norms, that form an
importantpart of the basis for peace among democratic states; one might
even go so far as to suggest that there exists an internationalsecurityregime
among these states. Democratic states may avoid war against one another
125. Russett and Starr, World Politics, pp. 416-37.
126. Gaddis, "The Long Peace," pp. 111-12. Gaddis also cites Kenneth Waltz's Theory of
International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 138, in which Waltz observes that
"the fiercest civil wars and the bloodiest international ones are fought within arenas populated
by highly similar people whose affairs are closely knit."
127. Russett and Starr, World Politics, pp. 426-27.
Internationalwar 437
because attacks on each other are perceived by their citizens (and perhaps
even their leaders) as inherently and inevitably unjustifiedand unethical.
Immanuel Kant, in his 1975 essay entitled "Perpetual Peace," predicted
"the ever-widening pacification of the liberal pacific union," which was
"guaranteed. . . to resultfrom humansfulfillingtheirethical duty." 128 More
recently, Russett and Starr have stated that "perhaps our elites cannot
persuadeus to fight anotherpeople who we imagine, like us, are self-determining.''129
Pessimisticallyspeaking, even thoughthe democratic"zone of peace" is
rather large, a tendency for democratic states alone to avoid war against
each otherwill not makewarobsolete, since it seems unlikelythata majority,
much less an overwhelmingpreponderance,of states in the world will become democratic. This is especially true if, as Michael Doyle suggests,
democraticstates are both more likely to maintainpeace amongthemselves
and more likely to find reasons to become embroiledin conflicts with "nonrepublics."130 Optimisticallyspeaking, as Russett and Starr point out, the
proportionof the globe ruled by democratic states is already sufficiently
large to make a noticeable contributionto a trend toward the obsolescence
of war. A recent story in The New York Times declared (and not while
quoting President Reagan) that "it is democracy that is on the ideological
march-from Manilato Rangoon to Tunis and even Budapest."'3' It is by
now rathercommonplaceto observe that the concepts of "perestroika"and
"glasnost" might be applied to current events in Mexico as well as the
Soviet Union. Analogous observations could be made about recent developments in Algeria, Chile, Turkey, Hungary, South Korea, Taiwan, Yugoslavia, and Pakistan, for example. Perhaps, ultimately, much of the rest
of the world will imitate Western European democracy, since the whole
world has already imitated that region's invention of the modern nationstate. Maybe it is not an accident that the area in the developing world
containingthose states with the longest history of formal political independence, Latin America, is also the area most populated with democratic
regimes; in time, the recent trend toward democracy in that region may be
duplicated.Perhaps,as Doyle notes, "The increasingnumberof liberalstates
announces the possibility of global peace this side of the grave or world
conquest." 132
128. Cited in Doyle, "Liberal Institutions and International Ethics," pp. 195-97.
129. Russett and Starr, World Politics, p. 434. In Understanding Conflict and War, vol. 4,
p. 278, Rummel attributes the lack of war between libertarian states in part to a "compatibility
of basic values."
130. Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science Review
80 (December 1986), pp. 1151-70.
131. James M. Markham, "The Idea That Democracy Pays Helps Reshape East-West Ties,"
The New York Times, 25 September 1988, section 4, p. 1.
132. Doyle, "Liberal Institutions and International Ethics," p. 191.
438 InternationalOrganization
Conclusion
In 1987, according to William Eckhardt, there were twenty-two wars underway in various parts of the world, but only one was clearly an "international"war.'33AlthoughSmall and Singerfound after controllingfor system size that there was no upwardtrend from 1816to 1977in the incidence
of civil wars, they also reportedthat " 13 of the most severe civil wars were
fought in the 20th century, eight of the 13 were fought since 1946,and three
of those occurred since 1965."''34 In light of the evidence showing rather
consistently that internationalpolitics is in fact less violent and productive
of deathsthanis domesticpolitics,135perhapsany optimismaboutthe coming
end of internationalwar must realisticallybe held in check when contemplating the future of civil wars.
The concept of sovereignty, as much as it may encourage "self-help"
leading to internationalwar, also offers protectionfor small, weak political
entities, as noted above. There is no comparablelegitimacy or protection
for vulnerablesubnationalor transnationalsocial entities. Nation-stateshave
proliferatedsince 1945;very few have disappeared.That is why Jews have
strived so mightilyfor a state of their own, having sufferedso horrendously
withoutthe protectionof sovereigntyduringWorldWarII. The Palestinians,
in contrast, have been batteredaround by one state after another (not just
Israel) in their stateless condition. That is why, needless to say, they too
would like a state of their own. Subnationalgroupsand transnationalgroups
(such as the Kurds) can be attacked and even obliteratedwith relative impunity and without evoking the restraintsthat breaches of sovereigntyusually produce.
Civil wars may also be more likely in the future because differences between groups that provide a basis for "us versus them" distinctionswill in
general be more tolerable and tolerated if "they" live across a boundary.
Although Angell and Levi have demonstratedquite convincingly that the
economic rationalityof one country conqueringanother is usually an uncertain propositionat best, there are indisputablebenefits, political as well
as economic, to the winner in a civil war. Then, too, any conflict-inhibiting
effects that nuclear weapons have (as well as the ethical aversion to war
that they can produce) seem more likely to come into play with respect to
conflicts between states than to wars within them. In short, the suspicion
here is that most of the factors (including, perhaps paradoxically, those
related to moral progress)that have the potentialto decrease the incidence
of internationalwar in the future will be less potent in their impact on the
incidence of civil war.
For thousands of years, slavery was thought to be an immutablepart of
133. William Eckhardt's data are presented in Ruth Leger Sivard, ed., World Military and
Social Expenditures, 1987-88, 12th ed. (Washington, D.C.: World Priorities, 1987), p. 28.
134. Small and Singer, "Conflict in the International System," pp. 69-70.
135. Rummel, Understanding Conflict and War, vol. 4, p. 53.
[nternationalwar 439
humannature. Yet it was abolished, and there is substantialhistoricalevidence that moral progress, or changes in ideas about ethics and morality,
playedan importantrole in bringingaboutthe demise of slavery. The practice
of slavery and the philosophicalrationalizationsmade in defense of it share
enough similaritiesand logical connections to internationalwar and its rationalizationsthat the eliminationof the first provides reason to expect the
disappearanceof the second. There have been clear changes in attitudes
about war over the last few centuries, and post-World War II patterns in
warfareprovide evidence that these changes have had an impact. There has
not been a war between majorpowers since 1945;traditionalcolonialism is
dead;and no conflictbetween states since 1945(or before)has ever escalated
to war unless at least one of the states was not democratic. Alternative
explanationsof these patterns, based on fears engenderedby nuclearweapons or on economic interdependence,for example, are not entirely persuasive. Moral progress and, in some cases, regimes based on evolving norms
inhibitingthe initiation of internationalwar may have already made wars
between the richest and most powerful states in the world, as well as some
forms of depradationby the strong againstthe relatively weak states, relics
of the past.