The long peace, the end of the cold war, and the failure of realism

Abstract

Three of the more important international developments of the last half century are the “long peace” between the superpowers, the Soviet Union's renunciation of its empire and leading role as a superpower, and the post-cold war transformation of the international system. Realist theories at the international level address the first and third of these developments, and realist theories at the unit level have made an ex post facto attempt to account for the second. The conceptual and empirical weaknesses of these explanations raise serious problems for existing realist theories. Realists contend that the anarchy of the international system shapes interstate behavior. Postwar international relations indicates that international structure is not determining. Fear of anarchy and its consequences encouraged key international actors to modify their behavior with the avowed goal of changing that structure. The pluralist security community that has developed among the democratic industrial powers is in part the result of this process. This community and the end of the cold war provide evidence that states can escape from the security dilemma.

The Operational Codes of Fidel Castro and Kim Il Sung: The Last Cold Warriors?

“…The ultimate outcome was the end of the Cold War accompanied by a change in the distribution of power among states and a structural transformation from bipolarity to unipolarity (Mastanduno, 1997). Because units within the international system adapt to new structural configurations, the end of the Cold War also affected the particular situations of individual states, which in turn affected dyadic relationships between states (Lebow, 1994). Thus, the disintegration of the Soviet Union as one of the systemic poles changed the structure of the international system, but it also led to situational changes within the particular dyadic relationships between the Soviet Union (later Russia) vis-à-vis Cuba and North Korea.…”

I Will Follow: Smart Power and the Management of Wartime Alliances

“…45 Second, the process of assaying power and threat is also burdened by the absence of objective and reliable indices for accurately measuring either concept. 46 Third, during wartime, states also routinely project deceptive images of their intentions and capabilities towards both friends and foes in order to maximize their narrow self-interests. 47 Fourth, decisionmakers are prone to various cognitive biases, which leads them to frequently misperceive the actions and motivations of other actors in the international system.…”

The End of the Cold War: Its Dynamics and Critical Factors

“…Then, the Soviet Union agreed to remove many more missiles from the European areas than did the United States. 16 The above changes implied that both superpowers realized that the Cold War no longer existed and the international world had to transform.…”