No More Learning

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1. Worldpolitics. 2. Revolutions-History. 3? War. 4? Revolutions- Philosophy. 5? Politics and war. I. Title. II. Series.
D21. 3. W27 1996
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? ? Preface
Contents
vii
1 Introduction 1
2 ATheory of Revolution and War 18
3 The French Revolution 46
4 The Russian Revolution 129
5 The Iranian Revolution 210 6 Ihe American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese Revolutions 269 7 Conclusion 331
Index
353
(v]
? Revolution and war are among the most dramatic and important events in political life, yet few of the countless works on either topic devote much attention to the relationship between them. Students of revolution generally focus on the causes of revolution or its domestic consequences, examining its international aspects only insofar as they shaped the origins or course of the revolution itself. Students of international politics, by contrast, tend to take the state for granted and spend little time on those moments in history
where one state structure dissolves and a new one arises in its place. With a few notable exceptions, therefore, the literatures on revolution and war do not overlap. Indeed, the two fields do not even engage in much of a dia- logue.
This book is an attempt to bridge the gap. Specifically, I seek to explain why revolutions intensify the security competition between states and sharply increase the risk of war. I do so by examining the international con- sequences of the French, Russian, Iranian, American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese revolutions, drawing both on the theoretical and empirical litera- ture on revolutions and on several important ideas from international rela- tions theory.
My interest in this subject stems in part from a broader interest in U. S. for- eign policy. Throughout the Cold War, the United States repeatedly sought to prevent revolutionary movements from coming to power and often tried to overthrow them when they did. U. S. relations with most revolutionary states were predictably poor, even when these states were neither Marxist nor pro-Soviet. The U. S. experience was hardly unique: revolutions have been equally troublesome for others. By exploring how and why revolu- tions lead to war, therefore, I hope to provide practical guidance for national leaders who face an unexpected revolutionary upheaval.
[vii]
Preface
? Preface
The perspective I adopt is based on the familiar realist paradigm. I as- sutme that states exist in an anarchic environment, which leads them to place a very high value on security. In contrast to neorealist balance-of-power the- or. v, however, my focus is not limited to the distribution of aggregate power. I also examine the ways that domestic politics and ideology shape how na- tional leaders evaluate their security environment and how they choose among alternative courses of action. As we shall see, one cannot understand the international effects of a mass revolution by focusing solely on the bal- ance of power or the constraining effects of international anarchy. Nor can theBe factors explain why revolutionary states adopt particular policies,
why other states regard them as especially dangerous, or why revolutionary regimes are unwilling to abandon cherished international objectives even when their pursuit entails high costs. The balance of power is not irrelevant, but :it is neither the sole nor the most important factor in explaining how revolutions affect international politics.
Revolutions, I argue, intensify security competition and increase the prob- ability of war by altering each side's perceptions of the balance of threats. In addition to affecting the balance of power, a revolution also fosters malign perce'ptions of intent and a perverse combination of insecurity and over- confidence, based primarily on the possibility that revolution will spread to other countries. Although war does not occur in every case, strong pres- sures for war are alway s present and, invariably, the level of security com- petition increases significantly.
Much of this book takes the form of detailed narrative history. I found I could . neither understand nor explain these events without exploring them in some depth. Its length also reflects my own fascination with the events I was investigating-and if a great revolution is not fascinating, what is? -as well as my belief that valid empirical tests require a sophisticated under- standing of the historical record. As the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould reminds us, "Theories must sink a huge anchor in details. "
Revolutions are highly partisan events, and scholarship on them often re- flects these political biases. lb compensate, I have tried to document my claims as extensively as possible, rely ing upon multiple sources and the most widely accepted historical accounts. A number of these works, such as T. C. W. Blanning's superb Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars and E. H. Carr's masterful History of Soviet Russia, both guided my interpretation of particulc1r cases and shaped my thinking on the broader subject of revolu- tion and war.
Like most scholarly endeavors, this book took longer than I expected. Yet I never found the subject boring; indeed, had I been less captivated by the drama of the events I was investigating, the book surely would have been
[viii]
? Preface
finished more quickly. There is much that I still find puzzling about these events and much that I will never fully comprehend. In the end? volume is simply my best effort to add to our evolving understanding onhe phe- nomena of revolution and war.
I am grateful to the many scholars who have offered advice and criticism on some or all of the manuscript. In particular, I thank Said Amir Arjomand, George Breslauer, Richard Cottam, Thomas Christensen, Steve David, Michael Desch, Jim Fearon, Markus Fischer, Gregory Gause, Alexander George, Charles Glaser, Avery Goldstein, Judith Goldstein, Jack Goldstone, Louisa Bertch Green, Robert Johnson, Friedrich Katz, David Laitin, Colin Lucas, Bernard Manin, Andrew Moravcsik, Norman Nie, Kenneth Oye, M. J. Peterson, John Padgett, R. K. Ramazani, Paul Schroeder, Jack Snyder, George Steinmetz, Ronald Suny, Sidney Tarrow, Stephen Van Evera, John
Waterbury, Dali Yang, and Marvin Zonis. I am especially indebted to John . Mearsheimer, whose comments were extremely helpful despite his basic disagreement with my argument. I am also grateful to various research as- ? ;istants who helped me along the way, especially Elizabeth Boyd, James Marquardt, Lisa Moses, Julie Alig, and David Edelstein.
Portions of the book were presented at seminars at the Center for Science and International Affairs and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Stud- ies, both at Harvard University, and at the University of Michigan, the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Department of Politican Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ogy, the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University, and the Workshop on Comparative Politics and Historical Sociology at the Univer- sit:y of Chicago. I am grateful for these opportunities to try out my ideas, and I thank the participants at these meetings for many helpful comments. Their suggestions added to my labors, but they also made this a better book.
This project would not have been possible without generous grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace, the U. S. Institute of Peace, and the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. I did the initial work as a resi- dent associate at the Carnegie Endowment and as a guest scholar in the For- eign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, and I thank the heads of these two institutions, Thomas Hughes and John D. Steinbruner, for providing supportive and stimulating environments in which to work.
An earlier and somewhat different version of my central argument was published as "Revolution and War" in volume 44 of World Politics (April 1992). I am grateful to Johns Hopkins University Press for permission to adapt the material here. I also express my thanks to Roger Haydon of Cor- nell University Press, who answered my various inquiries with his usual combination of sympathy and wit.
? ? [ix]
? Preface
I dedicate this book to my wife, Rebecca Stone, to whom I owe just about everything.
Chicago, Illinois
STEPHEN M. wALT
? [x]
? Revolution and War
? [1]
Introduction
Like professional revolutionaries, social scientists seldom dearly under- stand quite what they are doing. But, again like professional revolution- aries, they do sometimes attain a relatively clear grasp of the implications of what they have already done; and sometimes at least, this constitutes a marked improvement on the achievements of their immediate prede- cessors.
-John Dunn
In this book I examine the international impact of revolutionary change, focusing primarily on the relationship between revolution and war. My chief objective is to explain why revolutions increase the intensity of secu- rity competition between states and thereby create a high probability of war. Because war does not occur in every case, my second objective is to clarify why certain revolutions lead to all-out war while others stop at the brink.
Although major revolutions are relatively rare, this subject is worth study- ing for at least two reasons. First, revolutions are more than just critical events in the history of individual nations; they are usually watershed events in in- ternational politics. Revolutions cause sudden shifts in the balance of power, alter the pattern of international alignments, cast doubt on existing agree- ments and diplomatic norms, and provide inviting opportunities for other states to impmve their positions. They also demonstrate that novel ways of organizing social and political life are possible and often inspire sympathizers in other countries. Thus, although revolutions by definition occur within a single country, their impact is rarely confined to one state alone. 1
Indeed, revolutions usually disrupt the international system in important ways. According to one quantitative study, for example, states that undergo a "revolutionary" regime change are nearly twice as likely to be involved in war as are states that emerge from an "evolutionary" political process. 2 And
1 ElbakiHermassi,"TowardaComparativeStudyofRevolutions,"ComparativeStudiesin Society and History 18, no. 2 (1976).
2 Zeev Maoz, "Joining the Club of Nations: Political Development and International Con- flict, 181&--1876," International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 2 (1989); and also see Jonathan R. Adel- man, Revolution, Armies, and War: A Political History (Boulder, Colo. : Lynne Rienner, 1985), 3-6.
? [t]
? Revolution and War
as the cases presented in this volume will show, revolutions invariably trig- ger intense policy debates in other countries. These disputes, typically di- vided between advocates of accommodation and advocates of intervention against the new regime, are strikingly similar, whether it is the European re- sponse to the French or Bolshevik revolutions or the U. S. reaction to the rev- olutions in Mexico, Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, or Iran. Yet despite the obvious relevance of this problem for policy makers, little effort has been made to assemble hypotheses and evidence that might resolve (or at least advance) the debate.
The need for a more informed debate is also apparent from the poor track record of U. S. policy in this area. Fear of revolution played a major role in shaping U. S. foreign policy throughout the Cold War, but U. S. responses to revolutionary change during this period were rarely very successfut. l Al- though the United States occasionally made modest efforts to reach a modus vivendi with new revolutionary governments (generally in the latter stages of the revolutionary process}, it usually regarded these groups with suspicion, if not outright hostility, having sought to prevent them from gain- ing power in the first place and still hoping to remove them from power after they obtained it. Not surprisingly, U. S. relations with most revolution- ary regimes have been quite poor. 4 Hard-liners blame these failures on ill- advised efforts at appeasement, while moderates attribute the problem primarily to exaggerated U. S. hostility. Although U. S. policy makers did
achieve their objectives in a few cases (such as the overthrow of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada in 1983}, it is hard to view U. S. policy as a suc- cess story. 5
The foreign policies of most revolutionary states have been equally un- successful. Many of these regimes were suspicious of the West in general
3 See Robert Pastor, "Preempting Revolutions: The Boundaries of U. S. Influence," Interna- tional Security 15, no. 4 (1991) and Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America's Tragic En- counter with Iran (New York: Random House, 1985); and Robert Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World: Political Development Ideas in Foreign Aid and Social Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), esp. 141:r-42.
4 As the Mexican, Russian, and Turkish cases will show, this problem predates the Cold War.
5 For examples of these contending views, see W. Anthony Lake, "Wrestling with Third World Radical Regimes: Theory and Practice," in U. S. Foreign Policy and the Third World: Agenda 1985-86, ed. John W. Sewell, Richard E. Feinberg, and Valeriana Kallab (New Brunswick, N. J. : Transaction Books, 1985); Richard E. Feinberg and Kenneth A. Oye, "After the Fall: U. S. Policy toward Radical Regimes," World Policy Journal 1, no. 1 (1g83); Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant: U. S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America (Pittsburgh: Uni- versity of Pittsburgh Press, 1976); Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984); W. Scott Thompson, "Choosing to Win," Foreign Policy no. 43 (summer 1981); and Douglas J. Macdonald, Adventures in Chaos: Ameri- can Interventionfor Reform in the Third World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
[2]
? Introduction
and the United States in particular, but most sought to avoid an immediate military confrontation. Often, however, they were unable to do so, suggest- ing that policy makers on both sides did not fully understand the problems they would encounter when dealing with each other, which in turn points to the need for more informed policy guidance. Providing that guidance is a major goal of this book.
In addition to these practical benefits, examining the international conse- quences of revolutions should yield important theoretical insights as well. In particular, exploring the connection between revolution and war can il- luminate both the strengths and weaknesses of realism and help us identify which strands of realism are most useful. 6 For example, the "neorealist" ver- sion of realism developed by Kenneth Waltz focuses on the constraining ef- fects of the international system (defined in terms of the distribution of power) and downplays the impact of domestic politics, ideology, and other unit-level factors. 7 Revolutions are a distinctly unit-level phenomenon, however. The obvious question is whether the constraining effects of anar- chy will be more powerful than the unit-level forces unleashed by a revolu- tionary upheaval. For neorealists, the answer is straightforward: because international politics is regarded as a realm in which security takes prece- dence over other goals, Waltz predicts that revolutionary states will moder-
ate their radical ambitions in order to avoid being isolated or punished by the self-interested actions of others. In other words, they will be "socialized" by the system. 8
Neorealism also implies that revolutions will affect a state's foreign pol- icy primarily through their influence on the balance of power. When a rev- olution occurs, both the new regime and the other major powers are forced to recalculate the available possibilities and adjust their foreign policies to take account of these shifts.
By altering the distribution of power in the sys- tem, a revolution can yield far-reaching effects on the conduct of the new regime and the behavior of other states.
6 Stephen Van Evera identifies four main strands of realism in his Causes of War, vol. 1: The Structure of Power and the Roots of War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), chap. 1. For other discussions of the basic features of the realist paradigm, see my "Alliances, Threats, and U. S. Grand Strategy: A Reply to Kaufman and Labs," Security Studies 1, no. 2 (1992), 473-74 n. 1, and Robert 0. Keohane, "Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond," in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Robert 0. Keohane (New York: Columbia Univer- sity Press, 1986).
7 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1979).
8 Waltz acknowledges that state behavior is affected by system-level and unit-level factors but believes the system-level to be more important. In his words, "state behavior varies more with differences of power than with differences in ideology, in internal structure of property relations, or in governmental form. In self-help systems, the pressures of competition weigh more heavily than ideological preferences or internal political pressures. " See his "Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics," in Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics, 329; and Theory of International Politics, 127-28.
[3]
? Revolution and War
As we shall see, neorealism provides a useful "first cut" at understanding how revolutions affect international politics. Like any theory, however, it also leaves important gaps. To explain the link between revolution and war, for example, one could argue that increased power would make a revolu- tionary state more aggressive, while declining power would tempt others to exploit its vulnerability. But the opposite logic is equally persuasive: in- creased power might enhance the new regime's security and obviate the need to expand, while declining power would reduce the threat that others face and thus their inclination to use force. By itself, therefore, a shift in the balance of power cannot explain decisions for war. 9
In addition, although it correctly emphasizes that security is the highest aim of states, neorealism does not tell us how a specific state will choose to pursue this goal. As a result, it offers limited practical guidance to leaders who must grapple with a revolutionary upheaval. The knowledge that revo- lutionary states will eventually moderate their conduct may be comforting, but it is of little value for those who are forced to deal with the new regime's ambitions in the here and now. Will other states be better off by isolating the new regime, befriending it, or overthrowing it? Will a revolutionary state be more secure if it tempers its revolutionary objectives so as not to provoke op- position from others or if it tries to sponsor revolutions elsewhere as a means of undermining potential enemies and creating new allies?
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.