The World: A Brief Introduction

by Richard Haass

  Economic interdependence is also viewed as something that can bolster peace. The argument is that the more that countries have a stake in mutually beneficial economic dealings—such as trade or investment flows—the more they will act with restraint so as not to upset conditions that serve their interests. While this may be true in certain situations, amid crisis other calculations can trump “rational” economic concerns, something demonstrated by the outbreak of World War I. Security concerns tend to outweigh economic ones. Leaders often feel the need to sacrifice long-term considerations for the immediate lest they lose power in the short term as a result of being seen as not having done enough on behalf of a vital national interest. A crisis over Taiwan could provide a test for this theory, because circumstances could arise in which China (which has demonstrated considerable restraint in its foreign policy until recently so it would not disrupt economic ties essential for its development) could have to make a choice between its long-term political goal of bringing Taiwan under its control (something that would risk conflict with the United States) and its immediate economic self-interest (which would argue for not doing anything that would disrupt beneficial trade and investment).

  GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

  The degree of global governance reflects how much the most powerful countries in the world accept existing political and economic arrangements, the rules governing international relations, and how these rules are to be set, modified, and enforced. It also reflects the extent to which these countries are prepared to endorse new rules and arrangements for dealing with emerging challenges, in particular those associated with globalization. As discussed elsewhere in this book, governance in the realm of globalization has fallen short in every domain, and in several critical areas such as climate change and cyberspace the gap between the international challenge and the desired collective response is widening.

  There are a good many institutions and frameworks in place to promote global governance. The most prominent is the United Nations, an institution created to advance order and to prevent or, failing that, to resolve international disputes. It was designed during World War II and came into being in its wake. Its aim was to encourage countries to settle their inevitable differences and disputes peacefully—and to discourage governments from resorting to military action unless it was specifically endorsed by the UN. On occasion it has provided a useful forum for debate; as Winston Churchill once remarked, “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.” More broadly, the UN was built to avoid yet another world war, something the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor created in the wake of World War I, failed to do. The UN can authorize the use of military force, something that can add to order if it is necessary to restore stability. UN authorization also adds an important dimension of legitimacy to the undertaking.

  In reality, though, the UN’s contribution to international order has been and is likely to remain quite limited. Institutions are never more influential than the degree to which their principal members are prepared to agree and act in collaboration. The UN is no exception; most authority is to be found in the Security Council, a body of fifteen members, ten of whom rotate off after a period of two years and five of whom (the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom) have permanent seats and possess a veto that can be used to prevent the UN from acting or endorsing an action. When these five major powers agree, as they did in 1990 in the aftermath of Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait, the UN Security Council can bestow considerable legitimacy on an undertaking and make it easier to rally international support on its behalf.

  On most occasions, however, such consensus is impossible to bring about, which means the UN either prevents collective action or is sidelined. Countries are understandably unwilling to defer to the UN on questions involving their vital national interests and their perceived security. The UN is further weakened by the reality that the Security Council no longer represents the balance of power in the world; if it did, Japan, India, and Germany (or the European Union) would have a permanent seat. Bringing about such change is close to impossible because there is no agreement among the five permanent members of the Security Council to do so. The UN General Assembly, a body where each country has one vote regardless of its size, wealth, or military might, has little authority and little influence.

  THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

  Order can also be promoted by organizations other than those that are formal and have a membership that is universal or close to it. Indeed, multilateralism (essentially defined as collective efforts to tackle a specific problem or set of problems) is increasingly to be found in more selective groupings of countries that have relevant capabilities and are like-minded. NATO, for example, provided multilateral support for military intervention in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s when Russia blocked UN Security Council endorsement. There are groups such as the G8 (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, and Russia) that have been meeting at least once a year since the early 1970s to coordinate responses to a range of common and often global economic and sometimes political challenges. (To be precise, Russia joined what was the G7 in 1998, but its membership was later suspended.) There is also the G20, a larger grouping that includes China, Russia, and a number of medium powers, that has met annually since 1999 and also tries to deal with global challenges. And there are any number of small groupings formed for narrower purposes. All contribute something to the world’s order even if the world remains something other than orderly.

  INTERNATIONAL LAW

  International law touches on many aspects of international relations and is another source of order in the world. Perhaps most significantly, it lays out those circumstances in which the use of force is warranted or justified, such as in self-defense. It also establishes principles as to whether and how military force should be used (for example, it is meant to be proportionate to the provocation and only used against enemy combatants rather than civilians). It also makes clear that the use of certain kinds of weapons (for example, chemical weapons) can never be justified.

  The problem, of course, is that the world as it exists is not to be confused with a society within a country. There is no global court of law with real authority over matters of war and peace; the World Court (more formally the International Court of Justice) located in The Hague is in reality much more modest and technical in its scope. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has a narrow writ to try those accused of war crimes; in principle, such a capacity will help discourage individuals and governments from committing atrocities in the first place. The court is weakened by the reality that it often cannot arrest alleged criminals and even more by the fact that the United States is not a party to it out of concern the ICC could order the arrest and prosecution of American soldiers and diplomats. More generally, there is no global police force with the right to intervene wherever it deems it necessary to keep the peace. And there is no global “prison” or assured penalties for those who violate many of the rules that have been set out.

  There is a large body of law designed to limit the frequency and violence of war and to strengthen world order. One focus of these laws is when a war can be justified, what is technically known by the Latin phrase jus ad bellum (right to war). The most widely shared principle is that wars fought in self-defense (whether by the attacked or invaded country or on its behalf) are legitimate, certainly as long as the goal is to liberate conquered territory or to stop an attack already under way. This principle is embedded in the United Nations Charter.

  Other principles associated with the decision to wage war are that it be undertaken on behalf of a just cause, that there be a probability of success, that it be a last resort after other remedies have been exhausted, and that it be legitimized by a proper authority. This line of thinking is valuable, not so much as a formal constraint on when a war can be initiated—no one needs a license from an international body to start a wa
r—as because it may discourage actions that will alienate others and because it provides a framework for individual citizens and governments to judge whether a war makes sense.

  Another focus of international law is how a war should be fought. (The Latin phrase for this is jus in bello, or “law in war.”) Here the considerations include a sense of proportionality in the amount of force used, that civilians (noncombatants) not be intentionally attacked, and that certain weapons that cause indiscriminate mass casualties not be employed.

  There is a third set of considerations regarding law and war that does not enjoy the standing of the first two but that is gaining some traction; it is known by the Latin phrase jus post bellum, or “law after war.” It has to do with post-conflict situations and deals with such considerations as when it is right to go beyond restoring the status quo ante (what existed before the attack) in terms of territorial adjustments or imposed limits on militaries, the prosecution of war crimes, the imposition of sanctions, and requirements for compensation. These laws do not give a clear list of dos and don’ts that dictate behavior and are not universally observed. But they are valuable because they provide a set of important questions to be considered before policy is undertaken by a government or supported by a citizen.

  International law also promotes order in less dramatic ways. It sets out rules and procedures for diplomatic recognition and the treatment of diplomats, for the negotiation of treaties and other agreements, for the governance of seas, airspace, and outer space, and for litigation and immunities from prosecution. The demarcation of what seas fall under the jurisdiction of countries—generally, the first twelve nautical miles from the shore that are viewed as an extension of a country’s territory and the first two hundred nautical miles that are known as the country’s exclusive economic zone, which gives it certain rights over resources like oil reserves and fish—is especially important. All of this smooths the day-to-day interactions between countries, reducing the chance for conflict and facilitating diplomacy, trade, and investment.

  Treaties and other international agreements can make these rules formal and create mechanisms for managing disagreements. But such agreements only come about when there is consensus among the necessary parties, something that is often lacking or present only in a diluted form. The act of joining a treaty is a sovereign right that governments can either take or refuse to take, as is the option of complying with a treaty or withdrawing from one. Thus, a number of countries have refused to endorse the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and one (North Korea) withdrew years after signing it and also violating it. The United States has signed, but never ratified, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. More recently, the United States under President Donald Trump has withdrawn from (or stated its intention to do so) several international agreements and treaties entered into by his predecessors, including a nuclear arms control agreement with Russia, a nuclear agreement with Iran, a trade pact involving a dozen Asian and Pacific countries, and the Paris climate accord.

  War Between Countries

  Wars between countries are the most obvious sign that order has broken down. Such wars can be and are different in motive, purposes, means, duration, scale, cost, and scope. Feeding into this dynamic—and on occasion serving as a trigger of war in its own right—is both the rise and the fall of countries and empires. Countries, such as Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, can rise up to challenge existing orders as they did in the run-up to World War II, while fading empires (the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I, the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s) can give way to disorder when central authority breaks down and outsiders are tempted to enter the fray.

  The challenge is to find a way to accommodate rising powers on terms they and existing powers can all accept and to plan for and manage the unraveling of weak empires and countries. There is nothing new in this: writing over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides opined that the Peloponnesian War was in the end inevitable because of “the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” Some observers would argue that this is a good description of the challenge the world faces today in light of the rise of China.

  One need not travel so far back in time to find examples of wars between countries. In 1990, Iraq attacked and swallowed up all of neighboring Kuwait; it took an international coalition led by the United States and military action to liberate Kuwait and restore its government along with its independence. More recently, Russia used armed force to invade and occupy portions of Georgia and Ukraine, and it has annexed Ukraine’s region of Crimea.

  War provides the most basic evidence that order has broken down. Wars can be global, regional, or local. They can be fought for territory or resources, out of fear or ambition. They can be fought by entities other than countries, such as terrorist groups, militias, or guerrilla forces associated with some movement. They can be waged to overthrow a government and replace it with another, or to preserve a regime that is being challenged by internal or external forces.

  Not every armed encounter counts as a war. Some experts argue that scale matters, that the violence must claim at least one thousand lives before it can be classified as a war rather than as an incident or something less. This is clearly arbitrary. Also arbitrary is whether to call something a war, a conflict, or an armed conflict. The word “war” tends to be used to describe an event of scale that has a protracted nature. Defining something as a “war” may bring with it certain legal implications, especially as regards the rights of combatants. An intervention (if it is armed) reflects what one party does; it only turns into a conflict or a war if it is resisted in kind or if there is retaliation. It should be added that certain armed interventions (peacekeeping for one) can actually end or discourage wars.

  I am not aware of any minimum time requirement for a war to be judged a war. Wars have been known to last decades (the Thirty Years’ War in the early seventeenth century and, more recently, the war in Afghanistan come to mind) and as short as six days in the case of the June 1967 Middle East conflict.

  All wars are costly, some much more than others. Some nine million soldiers were killed during World War I and nearly twice that many during World War II. Several times that number of soldiers were wounded in those wars, and the number of civilians killed or wounded also numbered in the tens of millions. The economic cost is near impossible to tabulate.

  Traditionally, war is defined as involving the use of military force. But wars can be fought with other instruments, including economic penalties (sanctions and tariffs come to mind) and cyberattacks. Even when military forces are involved, shots need not be fired; an embargo, in which ships and planes are used to deny a country the ability to transport goods or people, is an act of war. Military forces can also be positioned coercively, in a threatening manner, in order to bring about a desired response. This is often referred to as “gunboat diplomacy,” and while such actions do not constitute a war, they threaten one and can lead to a war if the response is judged inadequate.

  CAUSES AND TYPES OF WAR

  The great early nineteenth-century Prussian general and strategist Carl von Clausewitz described war as the continuation of politics by other means. Wars between countries can be started for a host of reasons including ambition, greed, ideology, to redress some past grievance, to save lives, to block an adversary from rising, or to prevent adversaries from acquiring or using some capability. Throughout history, territorial disputes have been a common trigger for interstate war. And wars can be a means of satisfying domestic political pressures or a tactic to distract a population’s attention away from internal frustrations and failures.

  Wars can be distinguished by type. The two world wars of the twentieth century were total wars, in that any and all resources and weapons were brought to bear while much of the world’s peoples and territory were caught up in it. Most wars, though,
are limited, be it in purpose or means, although it should be pointed out that it takes two or more antagonists to keep wars limited, and just because a war is initiated with a limited purpose in mind or with limited means, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way.

  Wars are sometimes described as being either conventional or unconventional. The former can mean a war fought between opposing armies (as well as air forces and navies) wearing uniforms and under the control of governmental authority. Most of the fighting in a conventional war tends to take place on battlefields away from large numbers of civilians and noncombatants. In contrast, an unconventional war tends to refer to wars fought by soldiers of an entity other than a state, often by troops who mimic the tactics of more organized forces. Such soldiers tend not to wear uniforms and often attempt to blend into civilian populations. The battlefields for such wars may be urban areas. An unconventional war can also mean a war in which what are termed unconventional munitions—nuclear, chemical, or biological—are used. Cyberattacks are also becoming more common, either alone or as part of a larger military effort, further blurring not only the line between conventional and unconventional war, but also between war and peace. Increasingly, unconventional wars are becoming the norm.

  One specific type of war is preventive war, undertaken against a gathering threat or what is perceived to be a gathering threat. The threat can be general, such as the rise of a country seen as a rival—or more specifically, the feared development or acquisition by a rival of a new military capability. In either case, a preventive war is a calculated action undertaken to block the emergence of a perceived threat before it is fully formed. The Soviet Union considered a preventive war against China in the late 1960s to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear capability. Israel successfully carried out preventive attacks against nuclear facilities being built in Iraq (in 1981) and Syria (in 2007). The United States has more than once considered a preventive war against North Korea given its efforts to develop missiles that could carry nuclear warheads and hit American soil. Both Israel and the United States have considered undertaking preventive attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and might again one day if Iran appears to be developing nuclear weapons.