States, Nations, and the Great Powers: The Sources of Regional War and Peace

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
Figures......Page 13
Tables......Page 14
Preface and acknowledgments......Page 16
1 Why some regions are peaceful and others are not......Page 21
Balancing the explanatory emphasis on great power rivalry with richer regional war and peace theories......Page 23
IR theory and regional conflicts: the conceptual limits of explanations......Page 24
Too high a divide between domestic and international conflict......Page 26
9/11, the post-Cold War era, and regional conflicts......Page 27
Theory of regional war and peace: an overview......Page 31
Hot vs. cold outcomes......Page 32
Proposition 1: Regional/domestic factors are responsible for hot outcomes; global factors are responsible for cold outcomes......Page 33
Proposition 2: The state-to-nation imbalance is the underlying cause of regional war proneness......Page 38
My theoretical approach......Page 41
The key ideas and the existing literature......Page 43
The debate between outside-in vs. inside-out explanations of regional outcomes......Page 44
The substantive debate on the causes of wars and conditions of peace......Page 46
“Post-neorealist” theories......Page 52
Overview of the book......Page 55
Defining a region......Page 61
A typology of regional war and peace......Page 62
Realism: global system and regional system......Page 68
The international society perspective: global and regional society of states......Page 70
Transnational liberal community: global and regional......Page 71
Regional/domestic causal factors: the state-to-nation balance and liberal compatibility......Page 73
Global factors: types of great power regional involvement......Page 82
Theoretical linkages: the propositions......Page 83
Propositions......Page 86
Summary......Page 98
The argument......Page 102
The regional sources of regional wars......Page 104
Forces affecting the state-to-nation balance......Page 108
Ethnically congruent nation-states......Page 109
Civic/territorial nationalism......Page 110
Destabilizing forces that weaken the state-to-nation balance......Page 112
Political manifestations of nationalist dissatisfaction with the regional status quo......Page 114
Internal incongruence and state weakness lead to challenges of incoherence......Page 115
Types of states and their war proneness......Page 120
Revisionist ideologies and external interference in failed states......Page 126
Refugees, insurgents and regional wars......Page 127
The state-to-nation imbalance and regional war proneness......Page 128
Propositions derived from the state-to-nation imbalance as a key cause of regional war......Page 131
The state-to-nation imbalance and the immediate causes of regional wars......Page 141
Conclusions......Page 147
4 Explaining the war proneness
of the Middle East......Page 149
The Middle East puzzle......Page 150
Hot regional wars are initiated by the local states and not by the great powers, and are caused by the state-to-nation imbalance, rather than by systemic elements......Page 153
Explaining the high war proneness of the Middle East: the combination of revisionist ideologies and state incoherence under a state-to-nation imbalance......Page 155
The illegitimacy of the state system in the Middle East......Page 156
“Illegitimate states” or “artificial nations which do not deserve a state”......Page 159
Nations without states: Palestinians and Kurds......Page 161
National incongruence......Page 162
State weakness......Page 164
“Too many states”: the pan-Arabist revisionist challenge to the Arab state system and its interrelationships with weak states......Page 165
Pan-Islamism: the Islamic “nation” is artificially divided into “too many secular states”......Page 170
The Palestinian refugees: the “right of return” of stateless refugees......Page 172
Explaining variations among different states in the same region with regard to resort to force and war involvement......Page 173
The combination of state strength and national incongruence leads to revisionism: Syria and Iraq in the Middle East......Page 174
Syria’s incongruence and revisionism......Page 175
Syria’s hegemonic aspirations in Lebanon......Page 177
Iraq as an incongruent and revisionist state......Page 178
The case of Egypt: from revisionism to status quo?......Page 182
The incoherence of the Lebanese state......Page 183
Irredentist refugees and incoherent states – the example of Jordan......Page 185
Manifestations (indicators) of mutual Arab–Israeli illegitimacy......Page 187
The temporal evolution of rival revisionism in the Middle East: Zionism and Arab anti-Zionism......Page 188
Arab anti-Zionist revisionism......Page 190
Zionist/Israeli revisionism......Page 194
The effects of the state-to-nation imbalance on regional war proneness: power and security as the proximate causes of specific Middle East wars......Page 197
Arab–Israeli wars: situational vs. state-to-nation......Page 198
The 1967 war: a security dilemma war?......Page 200
Offensive wars of power and profit......Page 205
Illegitimacy, domestic vulnerability of regimes, and diversionary wars......Page 208
Explaining change over time: The decline in war frequency in the post-1973 era due to the growing state coherence/strength at the expense of pan-Arabism......Page 210
Revisionism......Page 211
Growing state-to-nation balance: rising state strength and decline in pan-Arabism since the 1970s......Page 217
Some limitations to the growing state-to-nation balance......Page 218
Conclusions......Page 219
Post-2003 Iraq and its effects......Page 220
5 Great powers, war, and peace in the Middle East......Page 225
Global factors: types of great power regional involvement......Page 227
The sources of great power involvement in regional conflicts: the balances of interests and capabilities......Page 228
The effects of unipolarity......Page 230
Great power competition or disengagement in highly conflictual (war-prone) regions leads to cold war (punctuated by hot wars)......Page 232
A concert or hegemony in regions with high war proneness leads to cold regional peace......Page 237
The Middle East during the Cold War period......Page 244
Competitive balance of power prolongs regional conflicts......Page 245
Some regional effects of the superpower competition......Page 246
Superpower attempts at war prevention: some fateful failures punctuate the regional cold war with hot wars......Page 252
Effective regional war termination by the superpowers......Page 255
US hegemony in the Middle East results in a transition to Arab–Israeli cold peace......Page 256
The effects of 9/11 and the war in Iraq......Page 268
The rising challenges to US hegemonic management......Page 271
Conclusions: systemic effects – possibilities and limitations......Page 273
6 War and peace in the Balkans:
states, nations, and great powers......Page 276
Geography of the Balkan peninsula......Page 278
Albanians......Page 279
Turks......Page 280
Western Yugoslavs: Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes......Page 281
1830–1878......Page 283
1878–1913......Page 285
Great power involvement......Page 287
Conflict outcomes......Page 292
The Aegean......Page 293
The Epiro-Albanian Coast......Page 294
The Lower Danube (Bulgaria)......Page 295
The Vardar and Drin Valleys (Macedonia)......Page 297
The Central Continental Core......Page 298
Bosnia-Herzegovina......Page 299
Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Carniola......Page 300
Summary of the theory’s success......Page 301
The effects of the type of great power engagement on regional outcomes in the post-World War I era......Page 304
Competition: France–Italy in the 1920s and early 1930s......Page 305
Disengagement: the status quo powers vis-`a-vis Eastern Europe and the Balkans in the late 1930s......Page 306
Dominance: Germany in the late 1930s–early 1940s and the USSR in the Cold War era......Page 309
The decline of Soviet hegemony and the emergence of a war zone in the Balkans......Page 312
Disengagement: the great powers and the former Yugoslavia in the post-Cold War era......Page 314
The need for an “integrated” explanation......Page 321
Conclusions......Page 322
Potential pathways to regional peace......Page 326
The strategy of conflict resolution leads to normal peace......Page 331
The conditions for the effectiveness of the conflict-resolution strategy: the presence of coherent states in the region......Page 332
The frontier state: state weakness in nineteenth-century South America leads to a war zone......Page 337
Security dilemma wars......Page 339
Wars of profit (wars of opportunity)......Page 340
Diversionary wars......Page 343
State consolidation enables conflict resolution: from war to normal peace......Page 344
Alternative explanations for the emergence of regional peace......Page 346
The necessary conditions: consolidation of nationally congruent states......Page 347
Conclusions......Page 356
8 The emergence of high-level peace in
post-1945 Western Europe:
nationalism, democracy, hegemony,
and regional integration......Page 357
The effects of regional integration......Page 358
The conditions for the effectiveness of the integration strategy: the prevalence of liberal compatibility......Page 360
The interrelationships between liberalism and nationalism......Page 361
New liberal states under benign hegemony/concert......Page 367
The state-to-nation problem in Europe and its transcendence after World War II......Page 369
The integration strategy’s effects: the postnational state and high-level warm peace......Page 372
The conditions for the strategy’s effectiveness: liberalization under US hegemony......Page 374
From hot war to cold war: the aftermath of World War II, 1946–1950......Page 375
From cold war to cold peace: global factors, 1950–1954......Page 376
The Saar problem......Page 378
Germany: from revisionist ethnic nationalism to postnationalism?......Page 380
From normal peace to high-level warm peace: European integration by democracies, 1958–2005......Page 384
Conclusions......Page 386
Summary of the theory and findings......Page 389
Systemic factors......Page 391
The state-to-nation balance......Page 392
Democracy......Page 393
Some of the findings with regard to the six propositions listed at the end of chapter 2......Page 394
Utility of the theory......Page 404
How to advance regional peace: lessons and suggestions......Page 406
Strong and incongruent states: defeat of the revisionists and the coercive approach......Page 408
Germany compared to Iraq......Page 410
Nation-building: the “offensive liberal” way to reach internal congruence – France and the United States......Page 412
Drawbacks of offensive/coercive approaches to resolving state-to-nation conflicts......Page 413
Hegemony, concert, and regional cold peace......Page 416
Addressing the state-to-nation imbalance: revision vs. preservation......Page 419
Liberal mechanisms to address the state-to-nation imbalance......Page 422
“Offensive” liberalism and imposing democracy as the solution......Page 425
State-building......Page 426
Regional conflict resolution and the emergence of normal peace......Page 428
Congruent and strong: integration of democracies......Page 429
Regional integration......Page 431
Sequencing the stages in regional peacemaking: an integrated-gradual approach......Page 432
Regional peacemaking: summary......Page 436
Agenda for future research......Page 438
The state-to-nation balance......Page 439
Democratization......Page 440
Appendix A: Comparative
dimensions of the state-to-nation
imbalance in the Middle East, the
Balkans, South America, and Western
Europe in the post-1945 era......Page 442
Appendix B: Data-file: major armed conflicts/wars by region, type, and modes of great power regional involvement (1945–2004)......Page 445
Bibliography......Page 468
Index......Page 509