Smith
Thus, states generally engage in conflict only when thought to be unavoidable. While the
security-dilemma and uncertainty of the future may lead to belligerent even expansionist
outcomes, the intensity of mutual fear that leads to “unavoidable” war is determined by
auxiliary variables, such as geography, technology and, ultimately, perceptions of
potential rivals based on past behavior.
In turn, this suggests the security-dilemma can
be managed but not eliminated.
On one hand, the importance of perceptions ascribed to
state behavior by defensive realists sets the foundation for explaining both zones of peace
and turmoil because it not only allows for “spirals” of hostilities but also of cooperation,
although cooperation is typically viewed as difficult to sustain.
reliance on the security dilemma as the focus of perception draws into question the
potential to contain war because ongoing conflict should heighten the dilemma,
particularly among neighbors. Conflict generates military build-ups, government
secrecy, suspicion, deceit, and violence. All obscure one’s intentions. Thus, while more
optimistic about peaceful relations, this approach has remained ambiguous about
increasingly confined wars and deeply-held cooperation across regions, as well as the
prospects for collectively managing regional conflict.
Generally sharing a pessimistic view, defensive realism might suggest that
ongoing conflict would ignite a security dilemma that creeps over space and time to
eventually engulf all proximate actors. Given a heightened uncertainty that warring
neighbors cast on regional relations, this logic suggests it would behoove a state to enter a
21
Indeed, much of what defensive realists seek to explain is inexplicable without implicit or explicit
reference to the perceptions of decision-makers. For instance, see Thomas J. Christensen, “Perceptions and
Alliances in Europe, 1860-1940”, International Organization 51:1 (Winter 1997), pp. 65-98; Barry Posen,
The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithica: Cornell
University Press, 1984); Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1987),
Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1996).
22
See Walt, “The Enduring Relevance of the Realist Tradition”, pp. 204-210.
23
For a fuller discussion of spirals as characteristic of international behavior, see Robert Jervis, Perception
and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), especially pp.
58-111. For cooperation as a stable development of reciprocity, see Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of
Cooperation (USA: Basic Books, 1984).
9
Convention