Chapter 2 Theoretical Frameworks
1. Origin of Security Dilemma: Offense-Defense Balance Theory
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Chapter 2 Theoretical Frameworks
As the acute arms race between U.S. and Soviet Union in the era of Cold War, competition between two great powers will make the military balance unstable constantly, proceeding towards the catastrophic destination. Then which factor does shape that phenomenon and how does it continue? Offering a good opportunity to observe the phenomenon, new rivalry between U.S. and China demands a theoretical description for those questions. In this chapter, it will try to understand the phenomenon theoretically and it will also consider the reason why a state has to fight with its rival by all means.
Meanwhile, researchers need to understand characteristics of future war environment when assuming that security environments under the phenomenon could decisively change patterns of war. As no effect without a cause, the war patterns cannot be changed blindly and with explanation power it requires presentation of causes about the change. Therefore, this chapter will simultaneously explain some theories on change of war pattern and its background in order to establish a theoretical frame for two purpose; discovery of China’s expectable threats and identification of limitations on the ASB doctrine.
1. Origin of Security Dilemma: Offense-Defense Balance Theory
For a hegemony power, a rival state emerging newly could be recognized as a threat to tear status quo down whereas the existing hegemony state could be regarded as an obstacle of national growth for the rival state trying to establish new inter-state relations by changing structure dynamics. Under this conflicting circumstance, each state must make desperate efforts to maximize national interest in the face of stiff competition alongside preparing a
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mean of survival. Also, the efforts would/should be autonomously realized by the each state because international relation is in a state of anarchy and it just requires the state to select a way for survival by the state itself.
Military power can be directly used in a political mean for protecting a state’s sovereignty, interest and its survival because individual state can only protect itself by its military force in terms of international relations.14 John Mearsheimer also argued that ‘the only rational approach for states under anarchy was to assume that those who can do harm, might do harm, and to prepare for this possibility by creating countervailing offensive military potential.’15
Meanwhile, a state’s military force would be operated by the detailed goal and intention whereas its enemy state alerting the state would recognize the military force as a critical threat since some elements requiring strong security such as a war plan bring ‘uncertainty’ to the potential enemy while hiding its cleared intention. Although a particular military policy just has defensive intention and goal, policy decision makers of the enemy state would misjudge it by hostile offensive actions unless the decision makers know it perfectly, and then the enemy policy makers would also have a dash at being guaranteed their survival by enforcing their own military force. Those situations under the uncertainty would be continued consistently and the efforts to solute the interactions between the two states repeatedly come However, what a state retains military force and operate it would lose roles and functions unless it clarifies (political) goal and scope of counter-action against its threats, because to operate the military organization unlimitedly is in fact impossible due to restrictive resources and limitation of national capabilities.
14 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2010), 111-123
15 Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 35.
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into action within dilemma, so-called ‘Security Dilemma’ 16
Then, how can the security dilemma concretely be shaped and which conditions can determine level of the dilemma? And, how can the inter-relations between the conditions and the dilemma explain? Evan B. Montgomery referred the definition of security dilemma, saying that ‘the situation where one state’s attempts to increase its security appear threatening to others and provoke an unnecessary conflict.’
17 Also, Martin Griffiths said that ‘the security dilemma describes a condition in which efforts to improve national security have the effect of appearing to threatening other states thereby provoking military counter-moves. This in turn can lead to a net decrease in security for all states.’18 But, the dilemma could be shaped not only by threatening intention of a state but also by a defensive intension of it. The reason is that the situation in which one state improves its military capabilities, especially its defenses, and those improvements are seen by other states as threats; each state in an anarchic international system tries to increase its own level of protection leading to insecurity in others, often leading to an arms race.19
If retaining military force by itself is a necessary thing for a state’s survival, military tension between two states are in competition can be in security dilemma by two levels. Ken Booth noted that;
First Level: a dilemma of interpretation is the predicament facing decision-makers when they
16 The word, ‘dilemma’ means ‘ambiguous proposition’ and it is a ‘situation that requires one to choose between two equally balanced alternatives.’ Ibid., 4.
17 Evan B. Montgomery, “Breaking Out of the Security Dilemma: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty,” International Security 31 (2006): 151.
18 Martin Griffiths and Terry O’Callaghan, International Relations: The Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2002), 292.
19 Karen A. Mingst, Essentials of International Relations (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 198, 322.
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are confronted, on matters affecting security, with a choice between two significant and usually (but not always) undesirable alternatives about the military policies and political postures of other entities. This dilemma of interpretation is the result of the perceived need to make a decision in the existential conditions of un-resolvable uncertainty about the motives, intensions and capabilities of others…
Second Level: a dilemma of response logically begins when the dilemma of interpretation has
been settled. Decision-makers then need to determine how to react… If the dilemma of response is based on misplaced suspicion regarding the motives and intentions of other actors, and decision-makers react in a militarily confrontational manner, then they risk creating a significant level of mutual hostility when none was originally intended by either party…20
Therefore, whether it is an exact calculation by correct awareness or a miscalculation by mistake and exaggerated threat, military policies of the both states have possibility of which it is construed as an intention threatening the adversary’s security in the end. Plus, arms race between rivals would be mutually repeated until reaching a certain apex in order to resolve the unstable security problem as well as reduce uncertainty, and the apex means possibility of war. However, security dilemma isn’t always shaped even though international status is anarchy and, moreover, it isn’t shaped in the same level and similar intensity. For example, U.S. and Soviet Union concluded the SALT in 1970 and the START I in 1991 under the sharp arms race of Cold War period such as catastrophic nuclear strategy, so-called the ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’. After then, those two great powers could reduce the dilemma while deciding to decrease the number of nuclear weapon to 2,000 warheads respectively by the
20 Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The Security Dilemma, 4-5.
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successive the START II & III.21The ‘Offense-Defense Balance’ theory, one of representative realism theories, explains origin of security dilemma and level difference of it by assuming propensity of military technology between two rival states as a main independence variable. Although K. Waltz didn’t mention the military technology in detail, he appreciated importance of it effecting on a state’s power.
22 Steven Van Evera argued that propensity of the military technology effects on a state’s behavior and stability of international system, distinguishing it concentrically between advantage for offense rather than defense and advantage for defense rather than offense.23
Robert Jervis and his offense-defense balance theory explain conditions of forming security dilemma and its intensity through four situations. According the theory, it is possible to distinguish military forces, military technologies, and related military policies of two rivals between defense advantage and offense advantage and possibility of war will be weaken if those elements are within defense advantage.
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The first world assumes that it will become the most dangerous dilemma if it is ambiguous or unclear to distinguish military policies and military enforcement direction of a single state or both states between offense and defense, because a state retaining offense advantage military forces is more easy to attack rather than defense and (if so is one) another state will
He also suggested four theoretical worlds, insisting that the propensity can determine military policy intention of a state in accordance with whether it is an offensive weapon or a defensive weapon.
21 Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, New START Nuclear Reductions Treaty Briefing Book (Washington DC: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, 2010), 7-15.
22 Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18 (1993):
50-54.
23 Stephen Van Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Cause of War,” International Security 22 (1998): 17-18.
24 Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (1978): 199-210.
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strive to reduce the security dilemma by military build-up that is based on offense, not defense.25 Thus, it is likely to escalate military conflictions due to offense-intensified arms race between rivals and it will be close to war in the end.
OFFENSIVE HAS THE ADVANTAGE DEFENSIVE HAS THE ADVANTAGE
OFFENSIVE POSTURE NOT
No security dilemma, but aggression possible.
Status-quo states can follow different policies than aggressors.
4 Doubly stable
Source: Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” 211. Figure 2.1 Jervis’s Four Worlds
In the second world, a state can recognize rival state’s military enforcement as a threat because of the rival’s ambiguous intention and attitude. However, intensity of the security dilemma will be weak if the rival is in defense advantage or in favorable condition for defense because its possibility of attack is relatively low.26
The third world assumes that security dilemma will not be shaped when intention and goal of two rival states are clarified. Even enforcing offense-centered military forces, an opponent
25 Ibid., 211-212.
26 Ibid., 212-123.
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side can make a military balance because another side also shows clear intention.27
Lastly, the fourth world is the most stable and safe among the Jervis’s worlds. In the world military intention between the two states are not only clear but also in the defense advantage
However, if military power is a core mean for a state’s survival in the view of realism, rival states in Jervis’s world are able to conceal offensive intention on purpose. Then it could turn into ‘the first world’ or ‘the second world.’
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Although those four worlds show diverse intensity of security dilemma, the possibility of the dilemma still exists (even in the fourth world). One of military tendencies is to close all information including its core intention in the name of ‘secret’. Considering it, sensitive intensions or other information cannot be opened for the enemies and it makes them misunderstand and take an over-action.
, so it has relatively low possibility of security dilemma with high certainty.
In addition, the balance theory concentrating on military technology is limited in the way that it dichotomously categorizes propensity of weapon systems including its technical sources by offense and defense. ‘Weapons may be usefully differentiated in a variety of ways, but the offence/defense distinction is not one of them’29
27 Ibid., 213-214.
Again, a weapon system should be distinguished by how to use it and how to be applied into operation and tactics in parallel, not simply ‘spears’ and ‘shields’. Furthermore, modern military technology can make integrate those two domains (offensive and defensive) into a single platform. For instance, the F-16 fighter jet is used to not only DCA (Defensive Counter-Air) missions that intercept penetrating enemy aircrafts but also OCA (Offensive Counter-Air) missions infiltrating the
28 Ibid., 214.
29 Sean M Lynn-Jones, “Offense-Defense Theory and Its Critics,” Security Studies 4 (1995): 672-674.
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while concentrating on multi-role functions. With the military technology, the origin of security dilemma suggested by the offense-defense balance theory, therefore, should be considered other important elements and its characteristics such as a doctrine, an operational concept, and a tactic for example.