Evolution of Realism in the Post Cold War Period
Contrary to popular belief, the wave of realism in the field of international relations thrived in the post cold war period by utilizing the tools of liberalism.
The slow death of Liberalism
Following the fall of the Nazi Swastika from the walls and high offices of Berlin, the world was plunging itself into an abyss of confusion over its own ways of working. Anticipating and understanding these world events was a new challenge to the philosophers, scholars and thinkers of the world.
The Liberal world order was drawing its last breaths as the American Fat Man exploded over Nagasaki and brought the last of the Axis Powers to their knees. Realism, the popular antithesis of Liberalism, gained popularity for being the only ideology capable of successfully explaining the causation and events of the Second World War. This was a contrasting difference from the climax of the Great War, where President Woodrow Wilson in his State of the Union address laid the foundations of the Liberal world order and the interdependence between democracy and peace, which would go on to live until the inception of the Second World War. In spite of the Allied Powers’ endeavours at the San Francisco Conference which gave rise to the United Nations Organisation, the rise of Realism in the field of International Relations was evident and unstoppable.
The resulting bipolar world order of the Cold War period was marred with fears that regional conflicts in the Middle East, Europe and South East Asia would escalate into a Third World War. The responsiveness of the Soviets and the Americans prevented this fatal possibility from turning into a reality. President Reagan’s proposal of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and General Secretary Gorbachev’s Glasnost & Perestroika, were efforts made to reduce the looming threat of a nuclear winter, and the world narrowly escaped a major conflict.
Realism helped us understand these events and their consequences until the final decade of the 20th Century began. The year 1991 began with a wave of mass people movements across the entirety of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with Boris Yeltsin leading these movements. The dissolution of the Soviet Union brought the world to a halt and the academic community could no longer rely on the theory of Realism, which had failed to take the people’s movement into consideration. The fall of the Soviet Union raised innumerable philosophical questions of the world order, in addition to the critical real-world issues of the economic, geopolitical and strategic balance.
Perhaps the comeback of a Liberal world order reinforced with the values of Western democracy and capitalism was inevitable now. The new Russian Federation, under President Boris Yeltsin had inherited nuclear stockpiles and strategic capabilities from the Soviet Union. Realism brought with it the concepts of deterrence and mutually assured destruction (MAD), which explained how the United States of America and the Soviet Union were able to maintain a grip over their respective spheres of influence separated by the Iron Curtain, while deescalating numerous regional conflicts and instances instead of engaging in an all-out nuclear war.
President Yeltsin and his Russian Federation could not fill the massive shoes left behind by the Soviet Union for numerous reasons. The pro-democratic nature of Yeltsin, reduced natural resources of Russia, loss of strategic points in the Eastern Europe, and above all the loss of the influence that the Soviet Union had previously wielded over the world were a few of those reasons. This comparison between the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union, its legal predecessor, indicated the non-attainability of a bipolar world order existing at the turn of the 21st Century. Did this mean a uni-polar world order with United States of America at its helm would emerge? Or a Liberal world order would sweep the world with President Bush walking on the footsteps of his almost century old predecessor, President Wilson? Was it time that international law and institutions took the forefront away from a world defined by the Realist principles such as Balance of Power?
United States and Russian Federation: A pursuit for balance
The young Russian Federation attempted to re-establish their dominance and gain power to balance out that of the US in several ways. The last decade of the 20th century brought with it a global security system where major agreements were signed to ensure control and protection of nuclear and conventional weapons, to ensure non-proliferation and liquidation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Meanwhile, the United Nations took a more central role in Peacekeeping around the world. Numerous other agreements such as reorganization of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1995; adoption of the Paris Charter in 1990 and the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997, and the Helsinki Final Act; and organizing of active discussions of the United Nations reform were signed to try to take back power through legal means. In addition, the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty was signed in 1999, and negotiations were held on joint development of missile defense systems.
However, these attempts were largely ineffective and incomplete for numerous reasons, one of them being the massive ambitions of the United States of America. At the turn of the 21st century, the United States of America in pursuit of International Peace and Security proclaimed to neutralize a volatile threat brewing in the Babylonian lands of Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was deemed a concern to the International Community on various occasions, but the legal means of taking action against Saddam still lay in the hands of the United Nations Security Council, through its powers enshrined in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. In 2003, United States’ aspirations of a unipolar world order had beginning to come out in the open through their actions such as the unilateral military intervention of the Republic of Iraq without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council under the pretext of an impending threat to the United States due to the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
And thus, began the series of events where the United States would openly showcase itself as the de-facto superpower of the world, and publicly started to establish the world order it envisioned: a world integrated under the umbrella of its Western Democratic and Capitalist values. This abnormal and sudden rise to power of the United States without a bipolar world order like before was evident to the world, including the Russian Federation. The reduced influence, resources and capabilities of Russia meant that construction of a new bipolar world order like the one through the Cold War was impossible.
The world was failing and the lack of methods and solutions to establish a controlling mechanism threatened the world peace further. The increased focus on the United States and their unilateral rise threatened the states, big and small, and the realities of international anarchy were vivid once again. The Realist fears of the Democratic Peace theory had started coming true with Democratic states now using the values of liberalism and democracy to engage in and escalate conflicts with non- democratic states. If such a large power was kept unchecked in terms of political, economic and military capabilities, it meant exposing the other nation-states to the possibilities of coercion, malpractice, gradual wear-off of rule of law, and peace, with exploitation taking the centre stage. States around the globe recognized this threat of an Imperialistic world being built under the pretext of the once peaceful Liberalism.
Birth of a Polycentric World Order
As we look at the world today, a multi-polar world order dominates the planet with multiple states leading the fight against world evils such as terrorism, corruption, organized crime, human rights violations, and climate change. Thirty years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the proclamation of the United States as the ‘sole superpower of the world’, we live in a multi-polar or a polycentric world. Following a period where the world was running out of options to contain the rise of the United States, what marked the origin of this multi-polar world?
The Kuala Lumpur Declaration on Revitalization of the Non-Aligned Movement in 2004 formally recognized the threat of USA’s unilateral rise to power. The latest declaration openly defined the new objectives of the Non-Aligned Movement: pursuing a multilateral world order. This was in light of USA’s actions aimed to establish itself at the helm of the world were becoming more apparent to the international community. However, considering this declaration as the beginning of the states efforts to survive in a post-Soviet world would be a blatant mistake. In spite of the American intentions of a unipolar world order had begun coming to light recently, the states’ efforts to help them survive in a world where United States of America attempts to become the sole superpower had begun at least a decade before this declaration.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the only means of containing the Liberal Internationalism of the United States was the empowerment of the United Nations, a tool of Liberalism to push Multilateralism and Polycentric World Order ahead of the increasing power that the United States fast aspired to be. Kenneth Waltz’s explanation of Realism centered around the balance of power and the survival of states in a largely anarchic international domain. With the United States growing in power, the other States came together for their own survival. The United Nations, an organization built upon Liberal principles, had been instrumental over the past couple of years in an endeavour to contain the spread of liberal internationalism. The United Nations’ increased role in peacekeeping, multilateral diplomacy, international development, protection of human rights and civilians was determined and facilitated by States choosing to pursue the route of multilateral diplomacy and international development through international organizations such as the United Nations. This sudden shift in the attitude of States towards multilateralism and the United Nations was an expression interpreted in a variety of different ways, such as Liberals claiming that the States realised the importance of absolute gains through international trade and development. Numerous scholars such as Fukuyama believed that the post-Cold War world took a turn away from Realism, which then failed to explain the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, as well as the world shifting towards Liberalism.
This unexpected step towards multilateralism through the UN, was not due to a reinforced sense of Liberalism and an ideological epiphany, resulting in the States’ attempt to strengthen the United Nations. Instead, this move was a result of the States’ strife for survival in the anarchic world which was threatened by United States of America’s capability and ambition to become the sole superpower in the world and establishing a unipolar world order. Thus, holding true the ever-present character of classic Realism in the actions of States in the International Relations throughout the post-World War II history. The actions of States throughout this period in the United Nations convey the utilization of multilateralism at the UN, as a means of achieving the Realist objective of State survival, as deemed by Machiavelli and turning United Nations as the balancing power against a unipolar world, holding true the concept of ‘balance of power’ by Kenneth Waltz.
