Asymmetrical States and Global Geopolitical Equilibrium

Abstract

ASYMMETRICAL STATES AND GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL EQUILIBRIUM Saul B. Cohen W„, 'hen the International scene was dominated by a small number of nations, world equilibrium was maintained by a relatively straightforward balancing of interests, often through shifting alignments. There are now approximately 170 sovereign states, including many with the ability to upset the global balance through direct or indirect action, and so the problem of maintaining stability is much more complicated. Civil conflict and local wars, international terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, and international monetary crises all have worlddestabilizing effects. Nevertheless, ifwe view the international system as subject to general development processes, we have reason to be optimistic about the prospects for overall geopolitical stability.1 Any system that is in dynamic equilibrium will be characterized by short-term disturbances or perturbations . As long as the system is open to change as a result of such pressures, and as long as it progresses toward higher stages of integration , it can maintain its equilibrium. In applying general-systems theory to the international scene, it is important to focus on geopolitical structure. Most recently this structure has evolved through the rise to prominence of the region as an "action setting" for relations among states. Within or adjacent to such regions, 1. Saul B. Cohen, "A New Map of Geopolitical Equilibrium: A Developmental Approach," Political Geography Quarterly 1 (July 1982): 223-41. Saul B. Cohen is president of Queens College, City University of New York. His recent publications include "Theory and Traditional Political Geography" and "American Foreign Policy for the Eighties." Both appear in Pluralism and Political Geography: People, Territory, and State, by Nurit Kliot and Stanley Waterman, eds. (Croom Helm, Ltd., 1983). 193 194 SAIS REVIEW major powers and other leading states provide overall political, economic , and ideological direction. At the same time, certain states reject such leadership, in effect becoming asymmetrical to their region. In the short run, these states are regionally and even globally destabilizing. In the long run, they create perturbations that facilitate the process of dynamic equilibrium. This paper presents such a thesis, first by reviewing recent changes in the global geopolitical structure, then by tying these changes to a theory of geopolitical development, and finally by discussing the role of asymmetrical states in this evolution. Substantial changes have occurred in the global geopolitical structure over the past five decades.2 Germany's attempt to dominate the globe was followed by a bipolar world in which the United States and the U.S.S.R. shared dominance in the 1950s and 1960s. This was, by the late sixties, supplanted by a multipolar system. At that time the European Communities , Japan, and China began to approach near-parity with the two superpowers in the political and economic spheres. Less than a decade later a number of additional nations had achieved international significance . Although these newcomers lacked the global reach of the five major power cores, they had sufficient strength within their regions to be reckoned as second-order powers.3 Referred to as the "new influentials," they are sometimes courted as allies by major powers or by small clientstates because of their real or imagined abilities to influence events within or even outside their regions. The countries now possessing global significance of the first or second order have grown both in number and geographical spread. As a result, a more complex global geopolitical structure has come about (see map).4 The international balance of power is no longer based upon 2.Only a half century ago it seemed possible that a single state could come to dominate the world order. This threat was not dispelled until Germany's defeat in the Second World War. The conceptual underpinnings for one-power world dominance were articulated in two competing geopolitical theories—MacKinder's Heartland and Spykman's Rimland concepts. The Heartlandic view offered two options for world control, both through rule of Eastern Europe. German control of the region would have meant that it could command, successively, the Russian Heartland, WorldIsland (Eurasia) and the World. Soviet control would have meant command of Western Europe, World-Island and the World. In the Rimlandic view, a Germany in control of the...