SUPERPOWERS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

SUPERPOWERS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

Also by Martin A. Smith BUILDING A BIGGER EUROPE? EU and NATO Enlargement in Comparative Perspective (with Graham Timmins) ON ROCKY FOUNDATIONS: NATO, the UN and Peace Operations in the Post-Cold War Era

Superpowers in the Post-Cold War Era Ken Aldred Director of the Council for Arms Control Centre for Defence Studies King s College London and Martin A. Smith Senior Lecturer in Defence and International Affairs Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in Peace Studies University of Bradford

First published in Great Britain 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-41397-3 ISBN 978-0-333-98127-6 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-333-98127-6 First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-22262-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aldred, Ken, 1937 Superpowers in the post-cold War era / Ken Aldred, Martin A. Smith. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-22262-8 (cloth) 1. World politics 1989 2. United States Foreign relations 1989 3. Great powers. I. Smith, Martin A., 1965. II. Title. D860.A58 1999 327.1'09'049 dc21 99 12667 CIP Ken Aldred and Martin A. Smith 1999 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99

Contents Preface Glossary of Names and Terms vii ix 1 Power 1 Power Defined 1 Power in Pre-Cold War History 7 Co-operation and Management by Leading Powers 14 2 The Two Cold War Superpowers 18 The Superpower Concept 18 American Power and Influence in the Cold War Years 20 Soviet Power, Decline and Collapse in the Cold War Years 31 Superpower Co-operation in the Cold War Years 46 3 The United States: Cajoler or Controller? 50 American Power Resources and Policy 50 The United States in the World since 1989 69 The United States in a Unitripolar World 95 4 Succeeding the Soviet Union 97 Russia In Itself and Its Foreign Policy Priorities 97 Russia and the Former Soviet Republics 107 Russia in the Wider Global Context 119 Russian Power in the Post-Soviet Era 131 5 What Next for Europe? 133 Western Europe as a Civilian Power 133 Western Europe s Corporate Personality 143 The European Union s Security Void 148 Western Europe s Confidence and the United States 152 European Power since 1989 163 6 Has the Winner Taken All? 165 Superpower 165 The United States as Hegemon? 171 A Unitripolar World 173 v

vi Contents Winner Takes All? Power and Superpower after the Cold War 176 Notes 181 Index 203

Preface This book deals with the issue of power in international relations. It is focused on the period of recent history following the end of the Cold War in 1989 91. The authors look at the leading international powers in this period of change. They seek to identify what has made these particular states powerful, and whether the key power-attributes of the Cold War have remained relevant and important as the 1990s have unfolded. Equally important has been the use made of the leading states power because power itself is a proactive commodity. Simply possessing the resources which make for power is not sufficient. A core argument of this book is that effective leading states are those which are able and willing to project power and influence consistently and successfully beyond their own national boundaries. The question what is power? is obviously a fundamental one. In Chapter 1 the authors address it by breaking the concept down and considering its main component parts. A working definition is put together which acts as the framework of analysis for the rest of the book. In Chapter 2 the authors apply their definition, and provide essential historical background, in an analysis of the nature and exercising of power by the leading countries of the Cold War era: the United States and the Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War, it has become commonplace to view the US as being the world s sole remaining superpower. What this means in practice, and the extent to which the United States really has occupied the role since 1989, are the key issues in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 the fate of Russia, as the Soviet Union s chief successor state, is considered. The Soviet Union was accepted as a second superpower; but what are the prospects of Russia, as its heir, retaining or attaining a similar status? During the Cold War period, Europe was caught in the middle of the US Soviet standoff. During the early 1990s, however, with that situation at an end, speculation began to mount as to whether Europe itself, or at least those of its western states grouped together in the European Union, might assume status and influence akin to a superpower. The prospects of this coming to pass are explored in Chapter 5. vii

viii Preface Undertaking an overview of power-relations in the post-cold War world is, by definition, an ambitious task. In order to make it more manageable for both the authors and prospective readers, the main focus of this book has been confined to the states and regions which were of principal significance during the Cold War. Thus Europe is given a chapter of its own, whilst Asia is not and Asian security issues are instead discussed in sections of all the chapters between Chapter 3 and the concluding Chapter 6. These discussions focus mainly on how Asia has affected, and been affected by, the three key actors of the Cold War years: the US, USSR/Russia and Western Europe. This treatment is not intended to downplay the importance of the Asian region in contemporary world affairs. However, the specific focus of this book is an examination of the extent to which the main Cold War powers have developed, maintained, or lost power in the years since 1989. Very often when post-cold War international relations are discussed, words like transition and flux are used to describe them. The findings in this study, which are brought together in Chapter 6, suggest that, notwithstanding the many uncertainties which do remain, it is nevertheless possible to answer with at least a reasonable degree of assurance vital questions on where international power will rest, and how it will be used in the first years of the next millennium. KEN ALDRED MARTIN A. SMITH London

Glossary of Names and Terms APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum ARF ASEAN Regional Forum ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations ASEM Asia Europe Meeting BEC Bulletin of the European Communities CDSP The Current Digest of the Soviet Press CDPSP The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press CFSP Common Foreign & Security Policy (of the European Union) CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CoE Council of Europe CSCE Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (until November 1994) CSRC Conflict Studies Research Centre EC European Community (until November 1993) EDC European Defence Community EPC European Political Co-operation EU European Union (subsumed the EC when the Maastricht Treaty came into force from November 1993) FRG Federal Republic of Germany FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GNP Gross National Product I-For Implementation Force IMF International Monetary Fund Mercosur Mercado Comun del Sur (southern common market) NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OSCE Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (the CSCE s new name from November 1994) ix

x RFE/RL SEA USDSD USPGO WEU WTO UN Glossary of Names and Terms RFE/RL Research Report The Single European Act US Department of State Dispatch US Government Printing Office Western European Union World Trade Organisation (replaced the GATT from 1994) United Nations