INTRODUCTION
Hegemonic' war has long been viewed as a distinctive kind of conflict, and one
1
that has played a crucial role in world history. As Robert Gilpin states:
The great turning points in world history have been provided by these
hegemonic st~ggl~s among political rivals~ these periodic conflicts have
reordered the international system and propelled history in new and uncharted
directions. They resolve the question of which state will govern the system, as
well as what ideas and values will predominate, thereby determining the ethos of
succeeding ages. The outcomes of these wars affect the economic, social, and
ideological structures of individual societies as well as the structure of the larger
international system. 2
·
These wars have been the most destructive in the European age and are responsible for
a disproportionate fraction of the casualties in international violence. A number of
serious attempts to define and theorize about this concept have been made recently.
The most important approaches in this regard are: George Modelski's Long Cycle
Theory which is also subscribed to by W. R. Thompson, the capitalist world-economy
paradigm oflmmanuel Wallerstein, and Robert Gilpin's theory of hegemonic war and
change. 3
Toynbee and the Balance of Power Theory
Arnold T oynbee, the great English historian, was the first to make an attempt to
construct a theory of what he referred to as 'general war'. Arguing within a balance of
power framework, he holds that a bid for world dominion by the leading power evokes
1
The concept has also been referred to as 'global war', 'world war', 'extensive war', 'systemic war'.
and 'hyper war'. Despite some differences, these various concepts refer to the same basic
phenomenon.
2
Robert Gilpin. War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, 1981), p. 203.
3
For excellent summaries on these three approaches see. William R. Thompson. On Global I'Var:
llistvrica/-Structural Approaches to World Politics (Columbia, SC, 1988), pp. 36-60.
2
an opposing coalition of all the other powers in the state system and a 'general war' to
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maintain the balance of power It usually results in the defeat of the aggressor and a
period of peace which he called a 'breathing space'. For this is an uneasy, transient, and
'patched-up' peace since the arch-aggressor has been foiled only temporarily.
Furthermore, the issues over which the war had been fought are not resolved; neither
are they capable of resolution yet. So, a burst of short and relatively mild 'supplemental
wars' follow which resolves the outstanding issues thus creating a lasting 'general
peace'. However, the gradual buildup of new forces explodes into another episode of
general war when a new power seeks domination. Such a cycle begins anew once every
century.
Toynbee's Modem Western System began in 1494 and expanded to incorporate
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the entire world by the twentieth century. The aggressor power has invariably been a
continental state which occupied a central territory and aimed at establishing
continental hegemony. He identifies the following periods. of general
Vl{lir~:_the_l994-.
1525 Habsburg-Valois struggle over Italy; the 1568-1609 conflict between Spain and
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the Netherlands which initially began as a revolt by the latter against their Spanish
sovereign -- it was England's intervention which transformed this conflict into a general
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war; the Wars of Louis XIV between 1672 and 1713; the French Revolutionary and
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Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815); and the First World War (1914-1918). He declined to
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4
See Arnold J. Toynbec. A Studv of"/iistory. vol. 9 (London. 1954). pp. 234-60. 322-23.
~ He applies this theory to the post-Alexandrine Hellenic and post-Confucian Sinic international
systems as well. See ibid .. pp. 260-87.
include the Second World War in this list and classified it as a 'supplemental war'.
6
However, in a footnote, he refers to it as a 'recrudescent general war' .
The Long Cycle Theory
George Modelski and William Thompson have contributed an elaborate theory
of global war which defines a global political system originating amund 1500. This
system has been characterized by regular cycles of world leadership and system
management. A world power emerges from what they refer to as a 'global war' with
monopoly control over military capabilities of global reach and over world trade. This,
in tum, gives it the ability to help structure the new global political and economic
systems and to maintain order. However, its leadership position gradually declines as
high debt burdens and overhead costs of the world power role weaken its economic
abilities. The resulting reductions in naval capabilities -- a cost-cutting measure -combined with the rise of new rivals leads to a deconcentration of power in the system.
Thus, the system passes through the stages of delegitimation and deconcentration till a
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new struggle for world leadership results in a period of global war after which the cycle
begins again. 7
Modelski and Thompson define global wars as conflicts that determine the
constitution or authority arrangement of the global political system. 8 At the same time,
they are also long-lasting (up to 25-30 years) and global in scope, are the direct result
6
ibid., p. 255.
7
See for example George Modelski. "The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State".·
Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge), vol. 20. April1978. pp. 2J4-35.
8
W. R. Thompson. "Uneven Economic Growth. Systemic Challenges. and Global Wars".
International Studies Quarter~v (Columbia. SC). vol. 27. September 1983. pp. 341-55.
'
of a structural crisis in the system, and produce a new leadership structure for the
global system. Essentially, they are thus succession struggles for leadership in the
system, and are precipitated by the rise of challengers that threaten to gain a preeminent position on the European continent. These wars tend to begin as localized
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affairs and not as direct contests between the world power and the challenger. They
expand into global wars only when the world power fears that this continental
expansion will provide the power base from which a truly global challenge might be
launched. In every such succession struggle, the challengers have always failed because:
they did not augment their land armies with military power of global reach, i.e., a wellequipped navy; they could not match the successful maritime powers in obtaining credit
to meet the military expenditure involved in waging a global war; they embarked on
expansion prematurely, before the power transition had been completed; and, they
underestimated the magnitude of their threat to the global position of the world power,
and hence failed to anticipate the expansion of the war.
10
\
Modelski and Thompson identify the following periods of global wars and
successor world powers: the 1494-1517 Italian Wars which marked Portugal's rise as
the world power; the 1568-1609 War of Dutch Independence which led to the United
Provinces succeeding as the world power; the Wars of Louis XIV (1689-1713) leading
to the emergence of Britain as the world power; the French Revolutionary and
9
ibid .. p. 349.
111
Karen A. Rasler and W. R. Thompson. "Global Wars. Public Debts. and the Long Cycle". World
Politics (Princeton. N.J.). vol. 35. July 1983. pp. 489-516: William R. Thompson. "Succession
Crises in the Global Political System: A Test of the Transition Model". in Albert L. Bergesen. cd ..
Crises in the World .~vstem (Beverly Hills. Calif.. 1983). pp. 93-116.
5
Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815), marking the beginning of Britain's second cycle as the
world power; and the two World Wars (1914-18 and 1939-45) which led to the
succession of the United States as the world power.
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The Capitalist World-Economy Paradigm
'World War' doe'S play a role in Wallerstein's paradigm even though it is clearly
subordinated to economic processes. Wallerstein offers two similar definitions of world
war. While the first one states that it is 'a land-based war that involves almost all the
major military powers of the epoch in warfare that is very destructive of land and
population',
12
the other defines it as 'a massive land-centred, highly destructive, thirty-
year long intennittent struggle involving all the major military powers of the time'. 13
Although his definition is comparable to Toynbee's, Wallerstein's list is different from
that of the fonner and includes only the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the Napoleonic
Wars (1792-1815), and the combined World Wars of 1914-1945.
In Wallerstein's conception, each world war leads to the establishment of the
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hegemony of a core state. He defines hegemony as the ability of one power to impose
its rules and wishes on the system by virtue of its simultaneous dominance in
agricultural-industrial productivity, commerce, and finance in the world market. He
goes on to add that hegemony is a rare and brief phenomenon and has been confined to
11
12
13
Even though Thompson recognizes Portugal as a world power, he begins the first long cycle in 1517
after the formative global conflict. Thompson. n. 8, p. 347.
Immanuel Wallerstein. The Politics of the World-Economy (Cambridge. 1984 ). p. 41.
1mmanuel Wallerstein. Historical Capitalism (London. 1983). pp. 58-59.
the periods of Dutch, British, and American dominance after the three world wars. 14
Hegemons have been primarily maritime powers, but transformed themselves into land
powers in order to confront major challengers who were traditionally land-based -- the
Habsburgs, France and
Germany -- and attempted to transform the world economy
into a world empire. This confrontation leads to a world war and results in a major
restructuring of the world system in favour of the hegemonic power which emerges
victorious. The costs of leadership, however, precipitate a decrease in agriculturalindustrial productivity and lead to its decline and the erosion of its alliance network. At
the same time, two powers emerge as 'contenders for the succession', with ultimate
victory going to the one which manages to successfully gain the support of the
declining hegemon. The outcome of the hegemonic struggle, however, is basically
determined by economic rather than military factors.
15
Gilpin's Theory of War and Change .
Hegemonic War plays an integral role in Gilpin's conception on the evolution of
a global system that is governed by a dominant power by virtue of its military and
economic strength. He offers the most comprehensive definition of hegemonic war.
Firstly, it involves 'a direct contest between the dominant power or powers in an
international system and the rising challenger or challengers' and becomes total through
the 'participation of all major states and most of the minor states in the system'.
Secondly, 'the fundamental issue at stake is the nature and governance of the system'
14
Wallerstein. n. 12. pp. 39-43.
15
Wallerstein. n. 13. p. 59.
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whose 'legitimacy' may be said to be challenged; hence, they are unlimited conflicts 'at
once political, economic, and ideological in terms of significance and consequen<;es'.
FinaJiy, they are also unlimited in the means employed as well and expand to
encompass 'the entire international system'.
16
Such a war arises because of an increasing disequilibrium between the
governance of the system and the actual distribution of power. This latter is largely
determined by the law of uneven development that leads to the process of the rise and
fall of powers. The dominant power or the hegemon finds that its expanded
commitments and the costs of leadership cannot be supported by its eroding resource
base.
17
Gilpin points out that throughout history the primary means of resolving this
disequilibrium has been 'hegemonic war' which establishes 'an unambiguous hierarchy
of prestige congruent with the new distribution of power in the system'. It determines
'who will govern the international system and whose interests will be primarily served
by the new international order'. It effects a redistribution of territory among the states
in the system, and brings about a new set of rules, and a new international division of
labour. 18
However, the new political and economic order is not permanent because of the
operation of the law of uneven development which leads to the decline of the
16
1
Gilpin. n. 2. pp. 199-200.
~ He argues that the dominant power generally tries to reduce its commitments or expand its resource
base but without success. See ibid .. pp. 186-97.
18
ibid .. p. 198. At the same time. he also admits that a hegemonic war need not inevitably give rise to
a new hegemonic power and a renovated international order as happened in the case of the First
World War.
hegemonic power and the rise of new challengers. The dynamics of the system tend to
favour those states located on the periphery because states directly involved in the
hegemonic struggle tend to weaken each other and thus pave the way for dominance by
a strong peripheral power. His system is not confined to the modern world but extends
back to the time ofthe Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and the Second
--------
Punic War between Rome and Carthage. As for the modem period, his list oL
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hegemonic wars include: the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the Wars of Louis XIV
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(1667-1713), the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1814), and the
two World Wars of the twentieth century.
19
In his later works though, Gilpin has
considerably revised this list -- the Wars of Louis XIV disappeared, while the Second
World War became subsumed within the First.
20
*
One factor that is common to these various theoretical approaches is their
emphasis upon the systemic consequences of a hegemonic war. Thus, Raymond Aron,
describing the First World War states that a hegemonic war is
characterized less by its immediate causes or its explicit purposes than by its
extent and the stake involved. It affected all the political units inside one system
of relations between sovereign states. Let us call it, for want of a better term, a
war of hegemony, hegemony being, if not conscious motive, at any rate the
inevitable consequence of the victory of at least one of the states or groups. 21
19
ibid .. p. 200.
::v See Robert Gilpin. 'The Theory of Hegemonic War" in R. I. Rotberg and T. K. Rabb. cd .. The
Origin and Prevention ofMajor Wars (Cambridge. 1989). pp. 30-34.
::J Raymond A ron. "War and Industrial Society". in Leon Bramson and George W. Goethals. eds .. ll'ar
- .".'tudies.from P.,ychologv. Sociology, Anthropology (New York. 1964 ). p. 359.
Thompson notes that a global war may begin as localized conflicts that do not even
involve the dominant global power, and that a major challenge to the system 'may not
have been fully intended'. 22 And Gilpin argues that 'men seldom determine or even
anticipate the consequences of
~egemonic
war... do not get the war they want or
expect... fail to recognize the pent-up force they are unleashing or the larger historical
significance of the decisions they are taking'. 23
It is this focus on the consequences of the hegemonic war and its fundamental role
in effecting a transformation of the international system that provides a certain unity to
these approaches. Accordingly, a hegemonic war is one which has minor origins but
gradually expands to include other actors, especially the major powers within the
international system. Such expansion raises the stakes in the conflict thus leading to its
further intensification till it becomes an all-encompassing, system-wide war. The total
absorption of the entire system in a conflict of such magnitude constitutes a grave
threat to the status quo that had governed interstate relations before the war. Combined
with the magnitude and intensity of the confli(!t, this leads to growing calls for
restructuring the system on the basis of new principles that would contribute to
maintaining peace. As a result, the end of the war witnesses a great peace conference
involving almost all of the states where decisions concerning the entire system are
made. Because of their position as the leading combatants and given their system-wide
~~Thompson, n. 8, p. 349.
~3
-·
c·I
. n. 2, p. 202.
1 pm,
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interests, the Great Powers assume, and are granted, if not formally, a special role in
not only designing the post-war system but also in ensuring the peace thereafter.
Defined this way, one can identify four hegemonic wars in the modern international
system which originated in Western Europe circa 1500 and has over the centuries come
to
en~ompass
the whol_e world. These include: the Thirty Years War ( 1618-1648)
which culminated in the system-defining Peace of Westphalia; the French Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) whose end saw the establishment of the Concert of
Europe; and, the First World War (19140-1918) and the Second World War (19391945) which led to the establishment of formal international institutions for overseeing
the peace and repose ofhumankind.
Accordingly, this study is organized into four maJor chapters each of which
focuses on one of these above-mentioned wars and the way in which they transformed
interstate relations and the functioning of the international system as a whole. And each
chapter has been organized so as to bring out how the conflict being considered therein
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became transformed into a hegemonic war, the stakes for which the war began and how
they in turn expanded with every intensification of the conflict, the threat posed by the
war to the status quo, and the way in which the conflict was resolved and brought to a
peaceful end.