Source of thought: Criticism of idealism, reflection on World War I

"Twenty Years Crisis": laying the foundation for classical realism

"International Politics": The establishment of the theoretical edifice of realism

International organizations, international law＜power, strength

view of human nature

Interest concept

moral values

positive impact

Theoretical flaws

Status: The Manifesto of Neorealism

world system

international relations

domestic society

national government

decision maker role

decision maker

Absorb the system theory of neorealism

Adhering to the tradition of classical realism that attaches great importance to unit-level analysis

It emphasizes the combination of internal variables and external variables, system variables and unit variables. System pressure only works through domestic-level intervening variables to affect foreign policy decisions.

1. Adhere to the core proposition of realism, power politics

2. Expand the state theory to the two interrelated levels of international and domestic. Emphasizing that security is not the primary goal of the country's foreign policy, the primary goal of the country's foreign policy is to safeguard national interests to the greatest extent and pursue the increase of the country's relative power.

First, external decisions are made by elite leaders, so leaders’ understanding of relative power is crucial. This means that short- and medium-term foreign policy choices do not have to take into account carefully and continuously examined relative power trends.

Second, power analysis must examine the relative strength and structure of the state and society. These factors determine the proportion of domestic resources that can be allocated to foreign policy. Such as: Reasons for the expansion of the United States

Third, system pressure determines the general direction of foreign policy, but cannot determine the specific details of a country’s behavior.

It is believed that "the country focuses on maintaining the balance of power" and pursues "power that does not exceed existing power."

1. In anarchy, security is the primary goal and power is a means. The fundamental concern of a country in international politics is to maximize security, not power.

2. The logic of security maximization makes checks and balances rather than following (that is, joining the stronger party) the priority security strategy of the country. This international balance of power mechanism leads to the pursuit of power maximization often being contained and frustrated.

3. The reliable way to maximize security is to maintain the balance of power status quo

Core question: Why do alliances in international politics arise, that is, “how do countries choose friends” in anarchy?

Basic theoretical logic: Threat imbalance leads to alliances between countries, and the alliance behavior of countries "depends on the threats they recognize." That is, countries form alliances not to check and balance the most powerful countries, but to check and balance the countries with the greatest threats to maintain their own security, and at the same time " Affecting the evolution of the international system as a whole”

content

Strategic significance: Reveals the fundamental reason why the Soviet Union is considered more dangerous, demonstrates why the U.S.-led camp can accumulate more power to balance the Soviet threat, and why the development of the U.S.-Soviet competition situation is generally beneficial to the United States. What the United States needs to worry about is not its allies. betrayal, but how to avoid misplaced belligerence inspiring opposition from other countries

Domestic politics is used as the basis to explain why big countries always pursue expansionary policies and often move towards over-expansion. The theoretical logic is that the strategic concept of expansionary security is myth-based as an ideology and is used by cartels formed by various interest groups in domestic politics. Political alliances are used to pursue foreign expansion policies. The narrow interests of these interest groups are tied to imperial expansion, military preparation, or economic self-sufficiency. They support each other out of private interests and "pursue their narrow interests under the guise of the general interests of the entire society."

The anarchy of the international system does not necessarily drive a country’s external expansion. On the contrary, the law of balance of power and the law of growth of expansion costs in international politics often cause the strategy of seeking security through expansion to be counterproductive.

The law of balance of power means that imperial expansion will lead to overwhelming alliances with other countries, thus falling into "self-encirclement"

The law of expansion cost growth means that continuous expansion to the periphery will cause costs to gradually exceed benefits, leading to "empire overexpansion"

Snyder's theory shows that to evaluate and predict the expansionary tendency of a country's foreign policy, we should not only look at the international system, but also pay attention to the cartelization of the country's domestic politics. The higher the degree of cartelization, the more likely it is to expand externally, and other countries will Corresponding security strategies should be adopted accordingly

Taking the causes of war as the core issue, this paper tests five realist hypotheses about the origin of war, and accordingly makes two major revisions to the realist theory: one is to revise its focus on the overall power structure to focus on the fine power structure; The second is to revise its focus on power itself to focus on the cognition of state power.

Five realist hypotheses about the origins of war

misperception

Core logic: A world that is "offensive-dominated" (that is, conquest is considered relatively easy) is more dangerous than a "defense-dominated" world (that is, conquest is considered very difficult). The root cause of World War I lay in the rise and spread of "offensive fetishism" in Europe

The anarchy of international politics will not lead to a general advantage for countries pursuing security to pursue competitive strategies. On the contrary, under a series of conditions, cooperation is the best choice for a rational country.

Factors affecting national strategic choices

Glaser's theory is a "rational normative theory" that aims to reveal why cooperation is the "best choice for security seekers" under anarchic conditions. Its major policy implications are the impact of China's rise on U.S. security and Sino-U.S. relations. Optimism, emphasizing that neither the relative security strength of China and the United States after the rise of China nor China’s motives will cause security pressure on the United States and prompt it to launch a defensive war, because the United States still enjoys multiple defense advantages, especially huge nuclear weapons The deterrent effect of its advantages will ensure that the United States will be safe and China’s security interests will be protected.

(1) Intention is uncertain

(2) The state does not necessarily have hostile intentions

(3) There are many possible reasons for attacks, and no country can be sure that other countries are not motivated by any one reason.

(1) The country understands the anarchy of other external environments and the reality that other countries have military attack power, and considers its own survival from a strategic perspective

(2) The country “considers the preferences of other countries, pays attention to how its own behavior will affect the behavior of other countries, and also weighs how the behavior of other countries will affect its own survival strategy.”

(3) The state “pays attention to both the long-term impact and the direct impact of its actions”, and the state will carefully screen the long-term and short-term power effects of its actions.