Randall Schweller wrote in 2010:
ALTHOUGH THE BRITISH EMPIRE according to J. R. Seeley and Winston Churchill was acquired in a fit of absentmindedness, territorial expansion usually advances through a deliberate and collective will to imperial power, through a single-mindedness for expansion shared by both rulers and ruled… History shows that those restless leaders who have not only succumbed to imperial temptations but most zealously pursued their expansionist aims have generally led strong and unified polities, not weak and fragmented ones…
Operating within an anarchic, self-help environment, states must provide for the means of their own security and whatever other desires they develop; they must devise strategies, chart courses, and make decisions about how to meet internal and external exigencies… Realists argue, therefore, that expansion and preventive aggression to gain control over
scarce resources are often the best means of achieving more power and security in an anarchic setting that resembles Hobbes’s state of nature..
Yet there have been relatively few bids for hegemony in recent history. This is especially true in the Third Word, which consists of regions where significant power inequalities exist among neighboring states that should, according to offensive realism, engender opportunistic expansion. Since the end of the Cold War, however, very few Third World states have fought interstate wars, and the vast majority of Third World states have not even confronted significant external threats. As Jeffrey Herbst observes:
“Even in Africa, the continent seemingly destined for war given the colonially-imposed boundaries and weak political authorities, there has not been one involuntary boundary change since the dawn of the independence era in the late 1950s, and very few countries face even the prospect of a conflict with their neighbors. Most of the conflicts in Africa that have occurred were not, as in Europe, wars of conquest that threatened
the existence of other states, but conflicts over lesser issues that were resolved without threatening the existence of another state.”5 Likewise, K. J. Holsti comments: “The search for continental hegemony is rare in the Third World, but was a common feature of European diplomacy under the Habsburg, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Wilhelmine Germany, Hitler, and Soviet Union and, arguably, the United States.”6
Potentially powerful states such as India, South Africa, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil have chosen to remain potential regional hegemons rather than actual ones. None has even contemplated much less actively pursued a grand strategy to achieve this exalted status. And so what Gerald Segal claims about contemporary China can be said for all these countries: “China remains a classic case of hope over experience, reminiscent of de Gaulle’s famous comment about Brazil: It has great potential, and always will.”7Why have we seen so few wars of aggression in modern times?
…fascism shared many of realism’s core assumptions about world politics and views about the nature and role of the state. There are two very significant differences between fascism and realism, however: fascists did not believe in the balance of power and they
activated realist principles with a racist ideology that, unfortunately for humankind, succeeded in mobilizing the passions of the multitudes.
…if Germany had not attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, Hitler and Mussolini would have accomplished bold but prudent expansion for their states—expansion consistent with a
realist view of appropriate state interests and behavior because it did not provoke an overwhelmingly powerful counterbalancing coalition.
…a political regime that is able to mobilize and allocate resources to meet its policy commitments, has broad scope over societal activities and social groups, is autonomous from domestic and outside pressure groups, can command compliance from its subjects,
and enjoys the general consent of its citizenry will be less constrained to act in accordance with international systemic incentives than will a political regime that does not have these characteristics.
…Aside from the Mexican-American, Indian-American, and Spanish-American wars, U.S. growth in territory and power was accomplished by the attractiveness of its political system, which proved so seductive that other republics voluntarily relinquished their sovereignty and applied for admission to the American Union.
…Aggressive expansion requires a unified state composed of elites that agree on an ambitious grand strategy, and a stable and effective political regime with broad authority to pursue uncertain and risky foreign policies.
…Realism provides neither a theory of despotic power nor an ideology for whipping up nationalist sentiment to wage large-scale wars. Indeed, there is nothing about the realist creed that would stir the passions of average citizens in support of the state, much less cause them to rise up as one without regard to hardship. Large-scale mobilization campaigns in pursuit of risky and aggressive expansion require a crusade of some kind, which is precisely what realism decries as a basis for foreign policy.39 Realism is, instead, a cynical and largely pessimistic political philosophy about why things remain the same, why wars and conflict will persist, why the struggle for power and prestige among states will endure, and why, in Morgenthau’s words, “man cannot hope to be good but must be content with being not too evil.”40 At its core, realism is a hollow political doctrine, as E. H. Carr asserts: “realism, though logically overwhelming, does not provide us with the springs of action which are necessary even to the pursuit of thought. . . . Consistent realism excludes four things which appear to be essential ingredients of all effective political thinking: a finite goal, an emotional appeal, a right of moral judgment and a ground for action. . . . The necessity, recognized by all politicians, both in domestic and international affairs, for cloaking interests in the guise of moral principles is in itself a symptom of the inadequacy of realism.”
…fascism is offensive realism with a racist and social Darwinist overlay…
