Pol 348 - Journal #3 (1)

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Oct 30, 2023

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Journal #3 March 5th, 2022

Introduction and Arguments on the Nature of The Cold War

Political scientists William Wohlforth and Henry Nau disagree with each other in regards to their explanations on what the Cold War was, and how it ended. Reviewing both literatures, I find that Henry Nau’s explanations to better satisfy the dimensions of the conflict, because he does a much better job at defining his theory and the examples in which it applies to and expansively covers all factors of the debate, drawing conclusions of its causal sources from multiple disciplines of thought while maintaining a coherent, honest, and straightforward method towards supporting his own arguments. Wohlforth doesn’t display as many of these strengths in his paper, as he sets up his definitions of realist theory in tandem with its examples in the conflict rather poorly, and spends the bulk of the essay arguing his points and attempting to disprove counterpoints rather than considering the truths and wisdoms of them, viewing the conflict as a straightforward, single-dimensional entity easily explained by his realist theory. William Wohlforth takes the position that the Cold War was a product of realism, in that two powerful states, the United States and the Soviet Union were competing militarily with each other for the goal of gaining a foothold over the other in the international community, and to protect and secure their interests which were being threatened by either parties’ military buildups, arms races, and intelligence operations. Because these factors were the core causes of the Cold War, for Wholforth, the end to the conflict is displayed through the Soviet Unions’ inability to continue to fund their military efforts, due to their decline economically and technologically in comparison to the United States. This, is realism at work as the beginning and end factors of the Cold War Wohlforth argues, as practical constraints hindered the Soviet Union from continuing their interests in the conflict, thus requiring the regime to parley to the U.S. on their terms, for fear of economic collapse if the war effort continued which would leave the nation in a worse position than if it surrendered. From a realist perspective, the most logical thing to do for the Soviet Union was to adhere to the demands of the United States and the international community to avoid a longer, drawn-out conflict that would leave Russia in an even worse position, vulnerable in the international community with little economic, technological or political pull. In contrast, Henry Nau describes the Cold War primarily as a conflict caused by competing political and social ideas rather than a struggle for power or the failure of international institutions, as he argues that the divergent ideologies of authoritarianism and communism and democracy and capitalism, held by the Soviet Union and the United States respectively, were the ultimate determining factors of government actors’ policy decisions, engaging with the other country in conflict. Furthermore, the end of the Cold War conflict for Nau was characterized by the prevailing of the democratic, capitalistic “American” worldview globally, as the international community began to champion the two tenants, with countries, organizations constructing policy and inter- state interactions around them.

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Disparities Between Theory Definitions and Applications First and foremost when looking at Nau, he does an adept job at defining his explanatory mechanism, being the forces of ideological disparities at the core of the war, as he dedicates an entire section to do this. He clearly and carefully explains his own view on the key force in international affairs as being ideas, which he defines as “social, religious, moral and ideological orientations.” These orientations he explains define the identities of people groups, motivate their behavior in institutions both in the state and internationally, and moreover what they seek to do with their power. He spends the rest of the section developing his ideological framework through examples, notable ones being the interstate relations found between centralized institutions like the EU or decentralized institutions such as NATO, which are ideological entities. In doing this, Nau sets up the context for his argument later down the road, as we clearly understand where he is coming from, and he build off of his definitions later in the essay, displaying casual forces of the conflict as ideological in nature to his definitions, an example being his highlight of president Truman’s rhetoric towards the Soviet Union after World War II at the beginning of the conflict, as he made clear that the rivalry between the two nations was not only about power but “the choice between alternative ways of life,” focussed between free institutions, representative government, free elections and speech and religion versus the will of the powerful minority forcibly imposed on the majority, controlled press, fixed elections and suppression of human freedoms to name a few attributes of either ideology. Perhaps Wohlforth’s article is at a disadvantage as it is a follow up to his own work on realism and its role particularly at the end of the Cold War, however it lacks the conviction that Nau’s article has because he assumes for the most part that the reader is already wholly familiar with all aspects of realist theory, and therefore should be able to apply the language of the theory directly to his causal argument, that being the bid for hegemony and state constraints being the reason behind the beginning and the end of the Cold War respectively. In other words, he does a poor job summing and outlining his ideas before going into the body, as the most he elaborates on regarding the nature of realist theory and its involvement with this case is at the mention of the terms anarchy and the distribution of power being constant in the finishing stages of the Cold War. Not only are these statements not organized in a manner that directly shows the link between realist theory and the actual events in the war where it is argued to be present, it is rather vague in comparison to Nau, and thus causes the arguments of the paper to be less straightforward and more difficult to grasp. Presence of Counter-Arguments and Competing Information Finally, a key distinction between the two articles is the breadth of

tolerance either side has in incorporating and affirming wisdom deviant from their own. Wohlforth does a very in depth analysis of the Cold-War’s factors, and the reason for its end, as he describes the major characterizations of the conflict being the arms race, competition in the Third World, periodic crises and war scares, and the prevalent US-Soviet discord. He then sets up the reasoning for its end, describing the stark disparity between Soviet ability to grow economically and technologically towards the end of the war, and the United State’s ability to continue their military prowess. But in light of these contentions, Wohlforth does little to actually explain and confirm the non-realist arguments he is actually fighting against, for example dedicating an entire section to “debunking” the argument that realist theory failed to predict the peaceful ending of the conflict, but in doing so only outlines the factors that disprove this narrative, instead of giving insight as to where this conventional wisdom is coming from. He does mention the constructivist view of the conflict very briefly about halfway through the paper, but by the time he does, the damage has already been done leaving the reader assuming that there is nothing correct about the other prominent discipline, and goes no further to unpack core constructivist arguments that have merit (which we will soon see with Nau) and only vaguely highlights the perspectives’ contentions, stating that the ability to see the changing ideas and worldviews globally acted as a good explanation for what happened in the conflict. Nau in contrast, does his due-diligence on this part, contending his own argument through various examples (The U.S. and its allies creating NATO around spreading and protecting democratic ideals worldwide), but also quotes the asymmetric military and economic capacities that either side had before and during the conflict, which he quotes left “each side vulnerable to the other side’s strength.” Although not directly stating “realism” here, this information is deviant from his dominant argument, which provides better context for the beginning and end of the war. Another example of Nau’s ability to do this can be seen through his explanation of the arms race, explaining the Soviet balancing of military might, specifically of warheads by the early 1970s to catch up with American power to feel secure. Most importantly, he agrees that a big part of the Cold War ending was because of the U.S. outcompeting the Soviet Union militarily and economically, due to a western military and economic revival, and goes into great detail comparing either countries’ economy and military might at the time (ex. Comparing GDP and nuclear warheads). This directly affirms that some arguments made by the realist team are true, and provides greater stability to his argument this way, as he is able to contend that the ideological

factors he mentions are not the only factor at play, but are the decisive ones. Conclusion of Analysis and Arguments In conclusion, we see the disparities between Wohlforth and Nau as being arguments of realism versus constructivism, in regards to the causes during and at the end of the Cold War, with the former displaying competition between the two key states during the conflict, and the end determined by the inability of the other party to remain stable and secure as a nation. The latter describes the war and its end as fuelled by ideological disparities between the warring nations, with the American standpoint of democracy and capitalism prevailing at the end. Through analysis of the two articles, it can be seen that Nau does a better job explaining the tenants of his theories and how they apply to the case under study, and challenges and acknowledges the merit of the counter-arguments realist theory has to better explain and apply his own convictions, and finally to suitably explain the situation of the Cold War as a whole. From these standpoints of analysis, Wohlforth does a good job explaining the examples in which his arguments hold true, but lacks the same amount of introductory explanation as to what his theories actually are, and gives next to no attention to his intellectual adversaries and their findings that garner truth as well on the matter, doing everything he can to stick to his own region of thought and its examples.

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