No More Learning

We can answer these puzzles by recognizing that revolutions affect more than just the aggregate distribution of power. They also alter perceptions of intent and beliefs about the relative strength of offense and defense. Beliefs about the intentions of other states and their specific capacity to do harm will exert a powerful influence on the foreign policy of the revolutionary state, and the responses of other states will be similarly affected by their per- ceptions of the new regime. To understand the international consequences of revolutions, in short, we must move beyond the relatively spare world of neorealist theory and incorporate unit-level factors as well.
Finally, examining the foreign policies of revolutionary states may also shed some light on the merits of critical theory as an approach to interna- tional politics. Despite the important differences among critical theorists, they all emphasize the role of language and social processes in shaping ac- tors' goals, purposes, and self-understandings, and they focus on how dis- course, norms, and identities affect the behavior of actors within a social setting. 10 Revolution should be an especially interesting phenomenon from
? 9 See Robert Gilpin, "Theories of Hegemonic War," in The Origins and Prevention ofMajor Wars, ed. Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 26; and Jack S. Levy, "Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War," World Politics 40, no. 1 (1987).
10 This summary of the critical theory perspective on international relations is based on, among others, Mark Hoffman, "Critical Theory and the Inter-Paradigm Debate,"
? ? ? Introduction
this perspective, because state identities are rapidly and radically trans- formed by such events. If actors' identities and purposes are powerful de- terminants of behavior, then the ideas and values embodied in a revolution should have an especially strong influence on the behavior of the new regime. Thus, where neorealism predicts continuity (within a certain range), critical theory predicts dramatic and enduring change (despite the presence of external constraints). In broad terms, studying revolutions may help us assess the relative merits of these two perspectives as well.
The central question that informs my work here is whether revolutions encourage states to view the external environment in ways that intensify their security competition and make war appear to be a more attractive op- tion. In the pages that follow, I argue that this is precisely what they do. First, revolutions usually exert dramatic effects on a state's overall capabili- ties, especially its ability to fight. Even if the revolutionary state is not re- garded as dangerous, foreign states may still be tempted to intervene to improve their own positions or to prevent other powers from doing the same thing. As neorealism suggests, therefore, revolutions foster conflict by creating seemingly inviting windows of opportunity.
Second, revolutions often bring to power movements that are strongly op- posed to the policies of the old regime, and whose motivating ideologies portray their opponents in harsh and uncompromising terms. As a result, revolutions create severe conflicts of interest between the new regime and other powers, especially the allies of the old regime. In addition, new regimes are prone to exaggerate the degree to which others are hostile. Other states will usually react negatively, thereby creating an atmosphere of in- tense suspicion and increased insecurity.
Third, in some cases, the possibility of the revolution spreading may scare other states even more while making the new regime overly optimistic. At the same time, the chaos and confusion that are an inevitable part of the revolu- tionary process may encourage other states to assume that the new state can be defeated easily, which will make them more willing to use force against it. The belief that the revolution will be both easy to export and easy to overthrow cre- ates an especially intense security dilemma and increases the danger of war.
Millennium 16, no. 2 (1987); Richard K. Ashley, "The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: To- ward a Critical Social Theory of International Politics," Alternatives 12, no. 4 (1987), and "Un- tying the Sovereign State: ADouble Reading of the Anarchy Problematique," Millennium 17, no. 2 (1988); Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations The- ory," International Organization 41, no. 3 (1987), and "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (1993); James Der Derian and Michael Shapiro, eds. , International/Intertextual Relations (Lexington, Mass: Lex- ington Books, 1989); and John Gerard Ruggie, "Territoriality and Beyond," International Or- ganization 47, no. 1 (1993).
? ? ? Revolution and War
These problems are all compounded by the enormous uncertainty that ac- companies a revolution. Measuring the balance of power is more difficult after a revolution (especially if the new regime is based on novel principles), so the danger of miscalculation rises. Estimating intentions is harder as well, with both sides prone to rely on ideology in order to predict how others will behave. Revolutions also disrupt the normal channels of communication and evaluation between states at precisely the time when accurate informa- tion is most needed, further increasing the chances of a spiral of suspicion.
In short, revolutions exert far-reaching effects on states' estimates of the threats they face, and they encourage both the revolutionary state and the onlookers to view the use of force as an effective way to deal with the prob- lem. Each side will see the other as a threat, but neither can estimate the real danger accurately. For all of these reasons, revolutions exacerbate the secu- rity competition between states and increase the likelihood of war.
This argument does not imply either that revolutions are a unique cause of security competition and war or that none of the dy namics that drive rev- olutionary states toward war apply to nonrevolutionary states as well. In- deed, several of the causal links outlined in the next chapter are drawn from more general propositions in international relations theory. Rather, I argue that revolutions are a powerful proximate cause of these familiar phenom- ena and that they are especially destabilizing because they tend to trigger several causes of conflict simultaneously. As a result, competition and war are particularly likely in the aftermath of a revolutionary upheaval.
THE LITERATURE
Despite its practical importance and theoretical potential, the topic of the relationship between revolution and international politics is surprisingly under-studied. Although the literature on revolution is enormous, virtually all of it focuses either on the causes of revolution or on the domestic conse- quences of revolutionary change. 11 There are also valuable case studies on
11 The vast literature on revolution defies easy summation. Useful surveys include Peter Calvert, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992); Charles Tilly, "Revolutions and Collective Violence," in Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3: Matropolitical Theory, ed. Nelson W. Polsby and Fred I. Greenstein (Reading, Mass. : Ad- dison-Wesley, 1976); Jack A. Goldstone, "Theories of Revolution: The Third Generation," World Politics 32, no. 2 (198o); Rod Aya, Rethinking Revolutions and Collective Violence: Studies in Concept, Theory, and Method (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1990); Mark N. Hagopian, The Phe- nomenon of Revolution (New York: Dodd Mead, 1974); Ekkart Zimmermann, Political Violence, Crises, and Revolutions: Theories and Research (Cambridge, Mass. : Schenkman, 1983); and James B. Rule, Theories of Civil Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). An insight- ful historical introduction is Charles Tilly, European Revolutions: 1492-1992 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993); a useful bibliography is Robert Blackey, Revolutions and Revolutionists: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-Clio, 1982).
? [6]
? Introduction
individual revolutionary states, but very few works address either the gen- eral subject of revolutionary foreign policy or the specific connection be- tween revolution and war.
Three exceptions to the above claim are worth noting, although none lays out a fully articulated theory of the relationship. In Revolution and Interna- tional System, Kyung-Won Kim analyzes the French Revolution from a "sys- temic" perspective, based on concepts drawn from the writings of Raymond Aron. He draws a number of plausible conclusions (for example, that "het- erogeneous" ideologies fuel misperception and thus encourage conflict), but the book's value is limited by its focus on a single case. Peter Calvert's Rev- olution and International Politics is more comprehensive and offers a number of interesting insights, but he does not develop a coherent theory and pre- sents only anecdotal support for his claims. 12 Finally, David Armstrong's Revolution and World Order offers a more detailed and explicitly comparative analysis of relations between revolutionary states and "normal" powers, based on many of the same cases examined in the present book. His focus is differerit from mine, however; drawing on the concept of "international so- ciety" expounded by Hedley Bull and others, Armstrong's "essential aim is to elucidate the interaction between revolutions and revolutionary ideas . . . and the established norms and processes of international society. " For him, a revolutionary state is one that stands "for a fundamental change in the principles on the basis of which states conduct their relations with each other. " This definition is almost tautological, however-a state is revolu- tionary if it pursues "revolutionary" objectives-and Armstrong does not
present a theory explaining why revolutions make conflict more likely or more intense. 13
Apart from the works just noted, efforts to explain the foreign policies of revolutionary states have been relatively unsystematic or else confined to a single case. Our theoretical understanding of revolution and war thus con- sists largely of untested "folk theories. " At the risk of oversimplifying a di- verse body of scholarship, we may group the alternative explanations into three broad families, whose focus, respectively, is on revolutionary ideology, domestic politics, and the revolutionary personality.
12 Kim, Revolution and International System: AStudy in the Breakdown of International Stability (New York: New York University Press, 1970); Calvert, Revolution and International Politics (New York: StMartin's, 1984). The diffuse nature of Calvert's work is also due to his ex- tremely broad definition of revolution, which includes any "forcible overthrow of a govern- ment or regime. " For Calvert, a coup d'etat that reshuffles a military regime is just as "revolutionary" as a mass upheaval that destroys the existing social structure and erects a new one in its place.
13 Armstrong is admirably candid on this point and admits that his study "is not tightly or- ganized around a systematic set of theoretical propositions"; David Armstrong, Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 199J), J, 11.
? ? ? ? Revolution and War
Revolutionary Ideology
One popular approach views revolutionary foreign policy as a direct re- sult of the ideology of the revolutionary movement. The logic of this per- spective is straightforward: revolutionary states cause war by deliberately trying to export their ideological principles to other countries. They do this because the movement's core beliefs prescribe such efforts, contrary to the usual norms of sovereignty and nonintervention.
Not surprisingly, this interpretation of revolutionary foreign policy is es- pecially popular among the revolutionary state's opponents. During the French Revolution, for example, Edmund Burke argued that England "was at war with an armed doctrine," just as U. S. leaders blamed the expansion- ist thrust of Soviet foreign policy on the revolutionary ideology of Marxism- Leninism. President Ronald Reagan told the United Nations General Assembly in 1986, "Marxist-Leninist regimes tend to wage war as readily against their neighbors as they routinely do against their own people. "14 In much the same way, several examinations of Iranian foreign policy have at- tributed its bellicose nature to the expansionist strands of the Ayatollah Khomeini's Shiite theology. 15
Despite its popularity, however, this approach is an unsatisfying explana- tion for war. It is wholly one-sided: war is seen as a direct result of the revo- lutionary regime's aggressive beliefs (and presumably aggressive conduct). Empirical support for this view is at best mixed, however, as revolutionary states frequently behave with restraint and are as often the victims as the initiators of aggression. As we shall see, French foreign policy was fairly passive from 1789 to 1792; it was Poland that began the Russo-Polish war of 1920, and the Soviet Union generally avoided significant conflicts or inter- national commitments until the eve of World War II. Iraq started the war with revolutionary Iran, Somalia attacked Ethiopia, and Chinese interven- tion in Korea was a reluctant response to the U. S. advance to the Yalu River
14 See Edmund Burke, "First Letter on a Regicide Peace," in The Works of the Rt. Hon. Ed- mund Burke (Boston: Little, Brown, 1869), 5:250. On Western appraisals of Soviet conduct, see "X" [George F. Kennan], "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs 25, no. 4 (1947); Nathan C. Leites, A Study of Bolshevism (Glencoe, Ill. : Free Press, 1953); and "U. S. Objectives and Programs for National Security" (NSC-68), in Containment: Documents on American Pol- icy and Strategy, 1945-1950, ed. Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis (New York: Co- lumbia University Press, 1978), 386-96. Reagan also argued "it was difficult [for Americans] to understand the [Soviet] ideological premise that force is an acceptable way to expand a po- litical sy stem. " See "Text of President Reagan's United Nations Speech," Washington Post, 25 October 1985, A23; and "Transcript of Reagan's Speech to the U. N. General Assembly," New York Times 23 September 1986, Ato.
15 See R. K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) 19-26, and Marvin Zonis and Daniel Brumberg, Khomeini, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Arab World (Cambridge: Center for Middle East Studies, Harvard University, 1987).
[8]
? Introduction
rather than an enthusiastic act of political evangelism. Were ideology al- ways a direct and sufficient cause of conflict, these revolutionary states would have been the aggressors rather than the victims.
In addition, revolutionary ideologies rarely specify the precise tactics to follow to achieve the movement's general goals; indeed, they often stress the need for tactical flexibility. 16 Either war or peace can thus be justified on ideological grounds. Moreover, because official ideologies change relatively slowly, they cannot account for shifts in the revolutionary state's foreign policy as it learns from experience or adapts to conditions.
As we shall see, ideology does play an important role in determining both how revolutionary states behave and how their actions are perceived by others. By itself, however, it does not adequately explain the connection be- tween revolution and war.
Domestic Politics
A second approach to understanding revolutionary foreign policy draws on the familiar linkage between domestic instability and international con- flict. 17 In this view, conflicts within the revolutionary state are believed to encourage aggressive behavior toward others: the greater the divisions within the revolutionary state (either within the elite or between the gov- ernment and the population at large), the more hostile its foreign policy.
This hypothesis usually takes one of two distinct forms. One version fo- cuses on elite conflict: contending factions within the revolutionary move- ment promote conflicts with other states in order to secure greater power for themselves. A second version argues that revolutionary leaders seek con- flicts with other states in order to rally popular support, justify internal re- pression, and provide a scapegoat in case domestic problems persist. Thus, the radicals in France used the threat of a vast "aristocratic conspiracy" to justify suppression of the clergy and nobility, just as Castro in Cuba and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua used conflict with the United States to justify the repression of domestic opponents and to excuse their own policy mistakes. 18 In each case, an external enemy was used to solidify the regime's internal position and account for internal failures.
16 See Nathan C. Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 32-35; and Tang Tsou and Morton H. Halperin, "Mao Tse-tung's Revolutionary Strat- egy and Peking's International Behavior," American Political Science Review 59, no. 1 (1965), 89-90.
? 17 For a summary and critique of these theories, see Jack S. Levy, "Domestic Politics and War," in Rotberg and Rabb, Origins and Prevention of Major Wars, 79-100, and "The Causes of Wars: A Review of Theories and Evidence," in Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, vol. 1, ed. Philip E. Tetlock et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 262-73-
18 Dennis Gilbert, Sandinistas: The Party and the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass. : Basil Black- well, 1988), 94--95, 119, 183.
[g]
? Revolution and War
Both forms of the hypothesis share the tenet that revolutionary foreign policy is determined largely by domestic politics. Despite its intuitive ap- peal, however, there are at least two problems with this approach as an ex- planation for conflict and war. As with ideology-centered explanations, this type also assumes the revolutionary state to be the principal aggressor. But a state that has just undergone a revolution is rarely ready for war, and it would be foolhardy indeed for a victorious revolutionary movement to risk its newly won position in a test of strength with a powerful neighbor. Revo- lutionary leaders may use tensions with other states to cement their hold on power, but we would expect them to focus primarily on internal problems
and to avoid a direct clash of arms. 19 Nor does this approach explain why other states respond to these provocations in ways that strengthen extreme factions and heighten the danger of war. It takes two to quarrel, and theories focusing solely on domestic politics deal with only one side of the story.
The empirical record supports this assessment. Revolutionary states often seek at least cordial relations with potentially threatening regimes, if only to buy time until they can secure their internal positions. Thus, Robert Pastor argues, the Sanclinistas sought a modus vivendi with the United States after gaining power in Nicaragua, a goal that Castro had recommended to them and one that many U. S. leaders endorsed. Nevertheless, Nicaragua and the United States quickly entered a spiral of hostility that eventually led to the contra war. 20 Domestic politics clearly affects the foreign policies of revolu-
tionary states, but it cannot adequately explain the relationship between revolution and war. 21
The Revolutionary Personality
A third approach focuses on the personality traits of revolutionary lead- ers. 22Its proponents argue that the leaders of revolutions tend to be self-con- fident, ruthless individuals who have risen to power precisely because such personal trai? s are valuable assets in a revolutionary situation. These traits
19 Lenin told tlhe Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, "For a long time we are condemned merely to heal wounds. " Quoted in William Henry Chamberlin, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1921 (1935; reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 2:446.
22 Works in thns genre include E. Victor Wolfenstein, The Revolutionary Personality: Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971); Bruce Mazlish, The Revolution- ary Ascetic: Evolution of a Political Type (New York: Basic Books, 1976); Robert Jay Lifton, Rev- olutionary Immortality: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968); and Mostafa Rejai and Kay Phillips, World Revolutionary Leaders (New Brunswick, N. J. : Rutgers University Press, 1983). For summaries, see Thomas H. Greene, Comparative Revolutionary Movements: The Search for Theory and Justice, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N. J. : Prentice-Hall, 1984), chap. 4; and Hagopian, Phenomenon ofRevolution, JI8-JJ.
20 Pastor, Condemned to Repetition, esp. 191.
21 Not surprisingly, efforts to test the hypotheses linking domestic conflict with involve- ment in war have been inconclusive. See Levy, "Causes of Wars," 273-74.
[10]
? Introduction
allegedly make these individuals difficult to deter and prone to reckless OJ[' aggressive foreign policies, because they are attracted to violence, con- vinced of their own infallibility, and driven to perform new acts of revolu- tionary heroism. 23
This approach is perhaps most evident in biographies and other popular accounts; to date, most scholarship on the "revolutionary personality" has ignored issues of foreign policy. 24 Given the inability of this approach to ex- plain war, this omission is perhaps not surprising. The main difficulty is the lack of a strong theoretical connection between personality traits and for- eign policy preferences. Even if we knew that a leader possessed a "revolu- tionary personality" (whatever that may be), we would be able to deduce very little about that person's choices when facing a specific decision for war or peace. For example, although Maximilien Robespierre fit the classic profile of a revolutionary leader, he opposed the French declaration of war in 1792. Moreover, members of the same revolutionary elite often disagree about foreign policy, as Lenin and the Politburo did about the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk or the conduct of the war with f'oland, or as Iran's leaders did
over the export of Islamic fundamentalism versus the benefits of improving ties with the West. 25
In addition, the popular stereotype of revolutionary leaders is inconsis- tent: the same leaders are sometimes portrayed as simultaneously both irra- tional and fanatical, on one hand, and disciplined, calculating, and crafty, on the other.
Thus, this approach seems especially limited as an explanation for why revolutionary states are so prone to war.
Each of these three perspectives provides some insight into the behavior of revolutionary states and their relations with other powers. Nonetheless, they all err in focusing exclusively on the revolutionary state rather than on the larger setting in which foreign policy is made: war is seen as following more or less directly from the characteristics of the revolutionary regime.
23 Robert C. Tucker suggests that the organizational milieu of revolutionary and extremist organizations is "favorable for the emergence in leadership positions of individuals of a type that may be called the 'warfare personality. ' " The Soviet Political Mind (New York: W. W. Nor- ton, 1971), 4o-46; and see also Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 1:44; Henry Kissinger, "Do- mestic Structure and Foreign Policy," in his American Foreign Policy, expanded ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), J<r-"41; John H. Kautsky, "Revolutionary and Managerial Elites in Mod- ernizing Regimes," Comparative Politics 1, no. 4 (1969); and Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills, Calif. : Sage, 1977), 162.
24 An exception is Arthur Schlesinger's explanation of the Cold War as due in part to Stalin's paranoid personality: "Origins of the Cold War," Foreign Affairs 46, no. 1 (1967), 46-50. For a recent version of this argument, see John Lewis Gaddis, "The Tragedy of Cold War His- tory," Diplomatic History 17, no. 1 (1993), 4-7.
25 See Georges Michon, Robespierre et Ia guerre revolutionnaire, 1791-1792 (Paris: Marcel Ri- viere, 1937), 51-55; Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin (New York: Harper Colophon, 1964), 22o-22, 392-93; and David Menashri, Iran: A Decade of War and Revolution (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1990), 151-52, 37? 2, 395-96.
[11]
? Revolution and War
But decisions to go to war are not made in a vacuum. War is ultimately a re- sponse to problems that arise between two or more states. Understanding revolution and war thus requires an international-political perspective: in- stead of focusing primarily on the revolutionary state itself, we should con- sider how revolutions will affect the relationship between that state and the other members of the system:. A systemic approach is needed, therefore, par- ticularly if we want to understand why revolutions often lead both sides to regard the other as a threat and to favor the use of force. Before I turn to the task of providing such an approach, however, a brief discussion of research design is in order.
REsEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES
I define a "revolution" as the destruction of an existing state by members of its own society, followed by the creation of a new political order. 26
? A revolution is more than just a rearrangement of the administrative ap- paratus or the replacement of one set of rulers by other members of the old elite. Instead, a revolution creates a fundamentally new state based on dif- ferent values, myths, social classes, political institutions, and conceptions of the political community. By shaping national identities and setting the pa- rameters of subsequent political activity, a revolution establishes the basic nature of a polity. 27
Revolutions may be divided into two basic types: first, mass revolutions (or "revolutions from below"), and second, elite revolutions (or "revolutions from above"). In a mass revolution, the old regime is swept away in an explosion of political participation by individuals or groups that were marginalized or ex- cluded under the old order. In an elite revolution, by contrast, the old regime is challenged and eventually replaced by a movement whose leaders were
26 The term "state," as used here, refers to the administrative and coercive agencies pos- sessing legitimate iiluthority over a particular territorial area. For similar conceptions of rev- olution, see Franz Borkenau, "State and Revolution in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War, and the Sparuish Civil War," Sociological Review 29, no. 1 (1937); John M. Dun,n Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), xi; Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 264? 5; and George Pettee, "The Process of Revolution," in Why Revolution? Theories and Analyses, ed. Clifford T. Paynton and Robert Blackey (Cam- bridge, Mass. : Schenkman, 1971), 34-35. For alternative definitions and the historical evolu- tion of the term, see Eugene Kamenka, "The Concept of a Political Revolution," in Nomos VIII: Revolution, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (New York: Atherton, 1966), 122-35; Stanislaw An- drewski, Wars, Revolutions, Dictatorships (London: Frank Cass, 1992), chap. 2; and Peter C. Sederberg, Fires Within: Political Violence and Revolutionary Change (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 54-55?
27 See Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1976), 262? 6.
[12]
? Introduction
themselves part of the old regime-normally military and civil bureaucrats who become convinced that the old order can no longer defend vital national interests. 28 As discussed at greater length in chapter 2, elite revolutions tend to be less violent and entail less extensive social transformations than mass revo- lutions and their international consequences are usually less dangerous.
In this book I will examine principally mass revolutions, although I have also included one clear case of an elite revolution for purposes of compari- son. This focus is appropriate both because mass revolutions are more com- mon and because their international effects are usually more worrisome. In order to derive the greatest practical benefit from our results, it makes sense to concentrate on the category of events that is both most frequent and most likely to cause trouble.
The definition of revolution used here excludes both simple coups d'etat (where one elite faction replaces another) and pure national liberation movements (where a colonized group establishes an independent state by expelling a foreign ruler). 29 1t also excludes most civil wars, unless the vic- torious faction eventually imposes a new political order on its society. Be- cause the definition I am using is fairly restrictive, the universe of cases is small. It is much smaller, for example, than those resulting from the defini- tions of Peter Calvert or Zeev Maoz, who conceive of revolution as any vio- lent regime change and whose universe of cases numbers well over a hundred. 3 0 On the other hand, it is slightly broader than the definition used by Theda Skocpol, for whom revolutions are "rapid, basic transformations of a society's state and class structures . . . accomplished and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below. "31 If we adopt the definition
28 See Ellen Kay Trimberger, Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru (New Brunswick, N. J. : Transaction Books, 1978).
29 Owing to the similarities between national liberation movements and revolutionary or- ganizations, successful wars of national liberation and successful revolutions are likely to generate similar international effects. I include the American Revolution (which can also be thought of as a national liberation movement) because it had far-reaching social effects and because contemporaries saw it as presenting a new model for social and political life.
30 Peter Calvert defines "revolution" as "a change in government at a clearly defined point in time by the use of armed force," and Maoz defines "revolutionary regime change" as "a violent domestic struggle (of magnitudes ranging from a brief coup d'etat to an all-out civil war) result- ing in a change of government over a relatively short time interval. " A Study of Revolution (Ox- ford: Oarendon Press, 1970), 4 and app. A; and see Maoz, "Joining the Club of Nations," 205.
ll ThefirstsentenceofThedaSkocpol'sbookproclaims,"Socialrevolutionshavebeenrare but momentous events in world history," and she notes that "this conception of social revo- lution . . . identifies a complex object of explanation of which there have been relatively few historical instances. " She offers a list of additional cases in her conclusion (Mexico, Yu- goslavia, Bolivia, Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Ethiopia), but some of these examples may not fit her own definition. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Com- parative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 3-5, 287; and see Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, 193; and Aya, Rethinking Revolutions and Collective Violence, 70.
? ? Revolution and War
above, however, the potential universe of revolutions includes the English, French, American, Russian, Mexican, Turkish, Chinese, Cuban, Ethiopian, Nicaraguan, and Iranian revolutions. This list is not exhaustive-even for the modem era alone-but I believe it is sufficiently representative of a larger universe so that the irldusion of other cases would not undermine my fundamental results. 3 2
The bulk of this book consists of seven case studies. In chapters 3, 4 and 5, I examine the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions, while chapter 6 contains shorter studies of the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese revolutions. These cases were chosen with several aims in mind. First, al- though the precise nature of the revolutionary process differs from case to case, all seven are widely recognized as revolutionary events (the French, Russian, Iranian, Chinese, and Mexican revolutions were all mass revolu- tions, the Turkish was an elite revolution, and the American somewhere in between). Picking relatively uncontroversial examples of revolution may reduce controversy over whether the cases chosen were appropriate for testing the theory.
Second, the timing, geographic location, and ideological orientation of each case varies considerably from the others. The French and American revolutions were based on liberal principles (at least initially), the Russian and Chinese revolutions brought Marxist movements to power, the Iranian rested on a radical interpretation of Twelver Shiism, and the Turkish and
. Mexican were shaped by nationalist ideologies. Moreover, the states' inter- national positions and immediate prior histories were distinct as well. By applying the theory to a diverse set of revolutions rather than a set of very similar cases, we can gain greater confidence in its range. 33
Third, although each of these revolutions led to greater security competi- tion between the new regime and several other powers (and sometimes be- tween other powers as well), open warfare occurred in only four of them. By comparing these four with the cases where war was avoided, we can try to discern why war follows some revolutions but not others. 34
Finally, each of these cases constitutes a critical event in modem world history. Both contemporaries and subsequent historians have regarded them as having far-reaching implications; other things being equal, we pre- fer to study significant events rather than trivial ones. There is also a large
32 Needless to say, this claim could be challenged by future research.
33 AdamPrzeworskiandHenryTeunetermthisapproacha"mostsimilarsystems"design; see The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (New York: John Wiley, 1970), . 34-39?
34 This is essentially Mill's "Method of Difference": one compares cases where the out- comes were different in order to identify the causal factor that accounts for the change. See John Stuart Mill, "Two Methods of Comparison," in Comparative Perspectives: Theories and Methods, ed. Amitai Etzioni and Frederic L. Dubow (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970).
? ? ? Introduction
secondary literature on these seven revolutions, which facilitates the re- searcher's task considerably.
Taken together, these cases permit three basic comparisons. 35 ln order to demonstrate that revolutions do increase the level of security competition, I first compare the foreign relations of each country before and after its revo- lution. This procedure in effect uses the old regime as a control case in order to isolate the independent impact of the revolution on foreign policy. The old regime is an ideal candidate for comparison, insofar as it shares many characteristics (such as size, geographic location, population, etc. ) with the revolutionary state. If one can show that the revolution altered the country's foreign policy or international position-and especially the level of security
competition-one can plausibly infer that the revolution was at least partly responsible for the change. To do this, I ask whether, other things being equal, the level of security competition would have been higher or lower had the old regime survived. If the answer is "lower," then the revolution probably exerted an independent causal effect. 36
To test the specific theory that explains why revolutions exert this effect, I next "process trace" the relationship between each revolutionary state and its main foreign interlocutors for at least ten years after the revolution. This method is especially appropriate because the universe of cases is too small for a statistical analysis and the number of independent variables too large for a rigorous application of John Stuart Mill's "method of difference. " This tech- nique is also appropriate because my theory focuses on the ways revolutions shape the perceptions of the relevant actors. Process tracing allows the analyst
35 Basic works on case study methodology include Arend Lijphart, "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method," American Political Science Review 65, no. 4 (1971); Alexander L. George, "Case Srudies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focussed Com- parison," in Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy, ed. Paul Gordon Lauren (New York: Free Press, 1979); Alexander L. George and Timothy J. McKeown, "Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decisionmaking," in Advances in Information Processing in Or- ganizations, ed. Robert F. Coulam and Richard A. Smith, vol. 2 (Greenwich, Conn. : JAI Press, 1985); Harry G. Eckstein, "Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in Polsby and Green- stein, Handbook ofPolitical Science, vol. 7: Strategies of Inquiry; David Collier, "The Compara- tive Method," in Political Science: The State of the Discipline, ed. Ada W. Finifter (Washington, D. C. : American Political Science Association, 1993); and Gary King, Robert 0. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, De5igning Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
36 Such an inference gains strength if our case selection allows us to control for potentially omitted variables, which might be correlated with both the independent and dependent vari- ables. For example, defeat in war might be correlated with the occurrence of revolution and with subsequent increases in security competition, which could lead us to overstate the im- pact of the former on the latter. But if the level of security competition increases whether the revolution was preceded by military defeat or not, then the inference that revolution has an independent causal effect becomes more credible. This particular possibility is not a problem here; although the Turkish and Russian revolutions followed major military defeats, the French, American, Mexican, and Iranian ones did not.
? ? ? Revolution and War
to "get inside" the case (where one may find multiple opportunities to test the theory's predictions) and to evaluate the separate causal links that connect the explanatory variables with the predicted outcomes. 37
Finally, to explain why only some revolutions lead to war, I compare the French, Russian, Iranian, and Chinese revolutions against the American, Mexican, and Turkish cases. Although the results are not definitive, this comparison suggests that the absence of open warfare was due to the rela- tively high level of defense dominance that characterized the latter three revolutions. Not only was the danger of contagion either nonexistent or greatly muted (in part because these revolutions were not seen as especially infectious) but each of these revolutions occurred in geopolitical circum- stances that discouraged the use of force. Thus, although each regime faced intense crises on one or more occasions, they all managed to avoid the final plunge into war.
Two caveats should be noted before we proceed. First, inferences about the causal effects of a revolution may be biased if there is a reciprocal rela- tionship between the domestic and international effects of revolution. We are more likely to regard a revolution as significant if it has large interna- tional repercussions, but these same repercussions may have a powerful im- pact on internal developments as well. Had France avoided war in 1792, for example, Louis XVI might have kept his throne (and his head) and the more radical aspects of the revolution been averted. If this had occurred, what we now regard as the "French Revolution" might be viewed as an important but not "revolutionary" event and would not be included in this book. In other words, because the dependent variable (war) may affect the scope and importance of a revolution, thereby shaping its prominence in our historical accounts, there is the danger that our universe of revolutions is slanted in favor of the argument I am advancing here. 38 Although the observable evi- dence is quite strong, it thus ought to be regarded with some caution.
Second, in this book I focus on the direct diplomatic and strategic conse- quences of revolution, especially the relationship between revolution and
37 On "process tracing," see George and McKeown, "Case Studies and Theory Develop- ment," 34-41; Stephen Van Evera, "What Are Case Studies? How Should They Be Per- formed? " memorandum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993; Bruce Russett, "International Behavior Research: Case Studies and Cumulation," in his Power and Commu- nity in World Politics (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1974), 17-18: and Charles Ragin and David Zaret, "Theory and Method in Comparative Research: Two Strategies," Social Forces 61, no. 3 (1983), 748. Even advocates of statistical approaches concede that many theories can be tested only through a relatively small number of case studies, because the amount of research needed to obtain valid measures of key variables "precludes, for all practical purposes, the examination of many randomly selected cases. " See Barbara Geddes, "How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics," Political Analy- sis 2 (1990), 141-43.
38 This is an example of "endogeneity bias. " See King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, 185-96.
? [16]
? Introduction
war, and I do not devote much attention to their long-term, indirect impact on culture, norms, or notions of political legitimacy. Thus, although I do consider whether revolutionary states are able to export their revolution to other societies, I address the question of whether other states were under- mined by contagion (or subversion) rather than whether a revolution af- fected other societies through a more gradual spread of norms or beliefs. The latter question is obviously important, but it is not a central part of this study. 39
The remainder of this book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 presents my theoretical argument in detail and lays out the explanatory propositions that I evaluate in the rest of the book. Chapters J, 4, and 5 are case studies of the French, Bolshevik, and Iranian revolutions, covering roughly a ten-year period from the fall of each old regime. In chapter 6 I briefly analyze four additional cases-the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese revolu- tions-which I use to refine my central argument and to consider why some revolutions do not lead to war. Finally, chapter 7 summarizes the results of the historical cases, describes their theoretical and practical implications, and highlights their future relevance, stressing in particular the recent trans- formation of the former Soviet empire.
39 Works that address these issues include Joseph Klaits and Michael H. Haltzel, eds. , The Global Ramifications of the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Geoffrey Best, ed. , The Permanent Revolution: The French Revolution and Its Legacy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Keith Baker, Colin Lucas, Franr;ois Furet, and Mona Ozouf, eds. , The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, 4 vols. (New York: Pergamon, 1987--94); and E. H. Carr, The Soviet Impact on the Western World (New York: Macmillan, 1947).
? ? ? [2]
A Theory of Revolution and War
"Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary move-
ment. "
-V. I. Lenin
Why do revolutions intensify security competition among states and markedly increase the danger of war? My explanation is laid out in three steps. I begin by setting aside the subject of revolution to consider how states interact in the international system, focusing on those factors that account for security competition and war. To this end, I offer a simple theory of interna- tional politics, which I call balance-of-threat theory. I then analyze the revo- lutionary pl! 'ocess in some detail, in order to identify how revolutions affect the states in which they occur. Next, I bring these two lines of analysis to-
gether and show how revolutions affect international politics. Specifically, revolutions alter the main elements of threat identified by balance-of-threat theory, thereby encouraging states to favor the use of force. I conclude with specific predictions and set the stage for the subsequent case studies.
BALANCE-OF-THREAT THEORY
Like all realist theories, balance-of-threat theory begins by recognizing that states dwell in an anarchic environment in which no agency or institu- tion exists to protect them from each other. Security is thus the highest aim of states, and foreign policy decisions will be strongly influenced by how national leaders perceive the external environment and by how different strategies are expected to affect their relative positions.