POLI 244 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Hegemony, Preventive War, Hard Power
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Unipolar (in)stability
Systemic change - managing the rise and fall of great powers
International systems tend toward the balancing of power
○
Unipolarity is a hugely unbalanced system, power of the
hegemon will be redistributed into the system
Balancing
Internal balancing - alliances
□
External balancing - building up weapons in
the system
□
§
Hegemonic war
30 years since the end of the cold war there
hasn't been a counter hegemonic alliance
formed
□
Brought down by overexpansion and spending
rather than other states challenging the
hegemon's domination
□
One state where the majority of the military
power is concentrated, it is not easy for a
hegemon to sustain its hegemony so it will
have to constantly spend resources to fix the
"cracks"
□
§
○
-
North Korea has the most amount of submarines
-
U.S special forces are deployed around 70% of the world
-
U.S expenditure has increased more than China (they put more
dollars into their military)
In relative terms, there is a big increase for China and
Russia
China increased military budget by 325% meanwhile
the U.S. increased it by 70% (China is increasing it at
a faster pace)
§
China has allocated the same proportion of its
economy to its military and this is because of the
growth of the Chinese economy (increased its
military spending 100x without more effort)
§
○
-
The unipolar threshold - too powerful to be balanced
Much faster rate of growth compared to the hegemon
(U.S) although they are not spending as much as they
could ($ and GNP)
○
In general, balance of power suggests as the concentration
of power grows, the likelihood of counter balancing grows
○
When one great power has become so powerful then then
likelihood has actually changed and it becomes too
challenging for the other great powers to challenge the
great power
○
The more it continues to grow past the threshold the
less/(more?) likely a counter hegemonic alliance will form
○
-
Superpower has become a hyper power
Balancing is going to work amongst great powers and
between two superpowers but when the super power has
become a hyper power…
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Difficult to make a credible promise to confront the U.S.
○
Like a stag hunt in which the stag is hard to hunt down and
the hunters are rounded by the rabbits
Tempted to go for the rabbits rather than to go for
the stag and then defection will happen (counter
hegemonic alliance) and instead with try to cope
with U.S. hegemony
§
Internal balancing is the best strategy because you
want to confront a great power that has become
oversized by growing your own military
Good because you don't have to depend on
others and don’t have to have credible
promises
□
Bad because it is hard to militarize, had to
amass enough power to confront the
hegemon (not feasible) - if it is feasible it is
risky because the U.S. could start a preventive
war or undermine economic growth using the
power it has in the system to put limits on
capacity to grow and sustain economic
balancing
□
Decides to do internal balancing to build
military power (India) but Pakistan is
threatened so there is a regional security
dilemma that will undermine the strategy at a
global level
The best thing Pakistan can do is to get
an ally to defend itself against India
(form an alliance with the hegemon)
®
Regional balances are the imperative
states are going to use and are hindered
by the need to balance against regional
threats
®
U.S. is an offshore hegemon compared
to 19th century Europe
Global and regional imbalances
were one in the same (all in the
same region) - not today (U.S. is
far away) -most other great
powers are located in Eurasia
Will be more concerned
with regional rivals than
with the U.S. itself
}
◊
®
□
§
○
-
Unipolar stability
The unipolar threshold - too powerful to be balanced
Free riding and defection on counterhegemonic
cooperation
Internal balancing as self-defeating
§
○
Regional versus global imperatives
○
A unipolar equilibrium?
Powers are clustered in and around Eurasia
§
Tendency is to balance regionally and bandwagon
globally
§
○
-
Nuclear balancing?
Weapons make the power of the hegemon less
threatening because of nuclear deterrence
○
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Engagement or isolationism?
Isolationism that might trigger regional dynamics and
could have a negative impact on hegemony
○
-
What if soft power?
Power: the aibility to influence the behaviour of others to get
the otucomes one wants
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Hard power: getting others to do what you want
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Soft culture wars
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Competition over attention and credibility
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Anti-hegemon(ic) ideologies
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Institutional balancing
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Staibility of what?
Polairty v. political order - legitimate orders
○
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Lecture 27 -revision
Monday, December 4, 2017
2:34 PM
Document Summary
Systemic change - managing the rise and fall of great powers. International systems tend toward the balancing of power. Unipolarity is a hugely unbalanced system, power of the hegemon will be redistributed into the system. External balancing - building up weapons in the system. 30 years since the end of the cold war there hasn"t been a counter hegemonic alliance formed. Brought down by overexpansion and spending rather than other states challenging the hegemon"s domination. One state where the majority of the military power is concentrated, it is not easy for a hegemon to sustain its hegemony so it will have to constantly spend resources to fix the. North korea has the most amount of submarines. U. s special forces are deployed around 70% of the world. U. s expenditure has increased more than china (they put more dollars into their military) In relative terms, there is a big increase for china and.
