The Tiger Tale
Realism is based, in its essence, on the core-principle that international politics are defined by an immanent survival predicament. The concept of survival predicament is derived from the application of State-of-Nature premises to the global arena. Its fundamental postulate is that the existence and safety of the constituting elements (actors) of the international system cannot be assured in a proven and lasting way. Unless, the system’s defining political attributes are transformed (“meta-historical change”) or its domain of applicability will be limited or breached (a kind of islands of “eternal peace” in an ocean of Hobbesian conditions, not a very probable premise). In this view, the key question in thinking about global politics presents as: how is world order possible under historically immanent survival predicament?
As viewed from the “logic of the agent”, an international actor judges his situation as a survival predicament as he realizes that the source of his insecurity emanates from the other actors operating in the system’s anarchic structure. The capabilities, actions and threats of other actors (whether deemed as enemies, namely, as endangering the actor’s safety by design, or as potential threats meaning posing a threat by their very existence as self-interested agents) are an always looming existential threat (though not constantly clear and present) .
Kenneth Waltz’s interpretation of Rousseau’s Stag-Hunt tale is the accepted and influential metaphor (for Neo-Realists) of what he terms as the structural forces in international politics: there is only one stag, one hare and many (potentially) starved hunters. Therefore, cooperative behavior in catching the stag — even though each hunter share in the stag is preferred to the lone skinny hare — borders on the suicidal. Nevertheless, the logic of the stag-game is such that cooperation is possible, even probable, in cases when the actors find a mode of action which facilitates mutual trust (“Tit for Tat”) or they are obligated to the group by some form of social strong allegiance. Moreover, the price of desertion can be elevated to existential levels in case some of the actors are strong enough (“superpowers”) to force a kind of order on the group.
Thirty years ago, I presented [See, “Realism without Telos”, 1992, in Hebrew] what I see as a deeper and more adequate metaphor for Realism’s survivalist logic: two persons are escaping from a tiger. They are running for dear life, completely convinced that if the tiger will catch up with them he will kill them both. They also realize that the tiger is stronger than their combined forces and that it is faster than they are and thus, in historical terms, their fate is predetermined. Suddenly, one stops and puts on a pair of professional running shoes. “Why do you bother?” wonders the other, “anyway, in the end he’ll catch us both”. “Well”, answers the first one while speeding away, “for the time being, I have to outrun only you”. [i]
The logic of the tiger tale presents the survival predicament as eternal and absolute. The terms of this situation dictate that the nature of the actors is irrelevant to their predicament, nor are their relations. Therefore, in the context of the world arena, international actors (superpower as well as mini-states) are equally powerless to effect basic changes in the fundamental structure of global politics; hence, all are equally insecure. If one finds it hard to swallow, it will help to remember that the strong attract powerful enemies. [ii] Thus, the Globalist logic present the global situation as a refined Hobbesian State of War: immanently fragmented, shaped by the perennial forces of the anarchical order, and exhibiting an eternal propensity to erupt into crises and wars.
[To be continued: Realism vs. Universalism Clash of Ideas and the pragmatic derivative Liberalism (or Rationalism)]
Adopted , and edited, from my “Progress and Egress: Contending Ideas of Systemic Change” Original version published in “The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations”, Vol. 11, №2, June 1989.