Smith
bifurcation of the world into zones of peace and turmoil as the walls between conflictual
and cooperative states become increasingly high.
Realists of all persuasions tend to focus solely on the causes of war or the futility
of cooperation.
This research, however, is foremost concerned with why and how
conflict may breed cooperation rather than greater conflict. Following Robert Jervis’s
question, “[w]hy do wars not occur more often?”, I ask, why does war not spread?
Neither offensive nor defensive realists have sufficiently explained why conflict (once
underway) is not joined by others toward global turmoil or until capable actors simply
“burn out”.
Thus, my main theoretical contribution extends the logic of defensive
realism to explain cooperation toward containing conflict and the rise of zones of peace
—an empirical development largely neglected by realists. This also helps us understand
the ebb and flow of cooperation witnessed in Europe and other regions since the end of
World War II. A corollary argument based on this logic, but less explored here, suggests
that such cooperation may have an inversely related impact on conflictual others by
aggravating an already tense security dilemma through isolating desperate actors, leading
to reciprocal developments between zones of peace and turmoil.
This not only adds to our understanding of the relationship between international
conflict and cooperation, as well as to the intra-realism debates over offensive and
defensive tendencies in the international system. It also has broad policy implications.
For instance, how to manage regional conflicts has become one of if not the central
3
One notable exception is Charles L. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help”,
International Security 19:3 (Winter 1994/95).
4
Robert Jervis, “From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation”, in Kenneth A.
Oye (ed.), Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 58.
5
As Arthur Stein and Steven Lobell point out, a realist tendency to focus on systemic polarity has led to
both conflict-suppression and conflict-exacerbation schools of polar politics with inconclusive results due
to such regional variation throughout the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. See, Arthur Stein and Steven
Lobell, “Geostructuralism and International Politics: The End of the Cold War and the Regionalization of
International Security”, in David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan (eds.), Regional Orders: Building
Security in a New World (University Park: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), pp. 101-125.
4
Convention