Opinion Sur
Power struggle or mutually interesting arrangements? Deterrence or negotiation? That is the question. In other words: how do you combine security with prosperity? Zero sum or win-win? Peace depends on it. The question is an old one, but today it is crucial: peace means life; war means extinction.
From the Hittites onwards it was common in the empires to stamp on their coats of arms a two-headed eagle. In European heraldry, the two-headed bug symbolized the union of East and West within the Byzantine Empire. It was also an emblem of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburgs, and Russia. The bird of prey represented at the same time power and wisdom, and especially the union of opposites — reason and force — which is a perennial dilemma in every empire, and also in each country individually.
In ancient Rome, this peculiar ambivalence was represented by the god Janus, one of the few without Greek antecedents. He is the god of doors, of beginnings and ends. Its two faces look to the past and the future and thus gave its name to the month of January. Its temple, near the Forum, symbolized peace and war, marking significant changes in political and social life. It is fitting, I think, to begin the year 2025 of our era under the auspices of its cult.
The doors of Janus’ temple were opened in times of war, and they were closed in times of peace. Under the reign of Numa Pompilius (715-673 BC) they were closed, because Rome was at peace, but then they remained open for more than 400 years.
In our era, in the United States, Janus’ doors were closed for only thirteen years. In the rest of its history, the country was at war (114 military conflicts since its independence in 1776). So far in the twenty-first century, the doors have been ajar. With Mr. Trump’s second administration, it is worth asking: will they close or will they open wide?
This historical introduction allows us to address a fundamental question of the relationship between states: Unbridled power struggle or mutually interesting arrangements? Deterrence or negotiation? That is the question. In other words: how to combine security with prosperity; the rivalry with the concertation?
Formulated in this disjunctive way, we can separately address each of the two basic strands in geopolitical analysis, as developed by two disciplines – political science, on the one hand, and economic science, on the other, and then discuss different scenarios of their relationship.
In the study of international relations, the realist perspective (especially the school of “structural realism”) usually has good explanatory value. Its most prestigious representative is Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. He argues that the great powers seek to maximize their security by achieving regional hegemony, since survival in an anarchic system (i.e., without a world government) is their primary objective. He criticizes “liberal hegemony” (e.g., the U.S. imperial stance after the Cold War) arguing that attempts to impose liberal values globally fail due to the resistance of nationalism and cultural differences. The U.S. thought of themselves as an indispensable empire. Today they are an impossible empire.
This perspective holds that international policies should be based (and in fact generally are based) on strategic interests and not on moral or ethical ideals. It is the ancient lesson of Machiavelli. War is a logical, but not inevitable, consequence of competition between great powers. In truth, a system of this type has an escalatory logic (vicious circle and zero-sum relationship) from which it is difficult to escape, but there have been cases of balance of powers or mutual deterrence against the possibility of collective extermination.
As an illustrative example, it can be argued that NATO’s eastward expansion threatened Russia’s strategic interests, leading it to act to protect its security and sphere of influence. In this framework, Russia perceived Ukraine as a critical point in its strategic survival, which explains its invasion as a rational response according to the principles of structural realism.
Was such an inevitable outcome? Not if the United States and its allies had chosen an alternative strategy to the aggressive expansion of NATO, and always within a realistic perspective, accepting Russia’s strategic interests not as a disposable ex-power after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but as a different but inescapable successor power in its region of the planet. Today, going back on that wrong strategy is going to be much more difficult than if an alternative “realistic” strategy had been adopted from the beginning.
There are several ways to nuance and correct the structural realist perspective. As the above example illustrates, perhaps the most important variation is that which gives rise to subjective perception, according to William I. Thomas’s sociological theorem. The theorem states that “if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Subjective perceptions (for example, the supposed “irrelevance” of post-Soviet Russia first, and the opposite error: the “aggressive Russian imperialism” after 2014, on the part of the US leadership) can influence behaviors and turn initially false situations into very different realities. With false perceptions – voluntary and involuntary – the traditional American political and military/industrial power group has begun to play war with a rival that is not a competitor of equal power but is armed with nuclear warheads. There is a possibility, perhaps distant, I don’t know, that the incoming Trump administration will end up with such suicidal whimsy.
The second perspective in the study of international relations is economic. We know that political economy was an invention of the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. From Adam Smith onward, discipline is based on a premise and a promise. The premise is that economic freedom and free trade lead to the prosperity of the participants and the enrichment of the whole. The promise is that, by concentrating on improving their material interest, human beings tame their passions and moderate their struggle for power. Negotiating is not fighting.
In his book Passions and Interests, the distinguished economist and historian Albert O. Hirschman analyzed how, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, material interests, previously condemned as greed, were re-signified as a mechanism to contain destructive human passions (read the struggle for power, honor, and revenge). This ideological transformation made it possible to justify the emerging capitalism, arguing that the general welfare prospers when each individual pursues his or her own interests. A corollary was social peace.
The premise and the promise reach our days, with a “materialism” different from that of later Marxism, and due to the enthusiasm that the idea aroused at the dawn of the modern economic system. But already in Smith and later economists there was a doubt that this system contained its own destructive tensions and tendencies. Today, advanced capitalism is a victim of its own dysfunctions. In short, the main ones are two: the great inequality that fractures society, and the over-development that destroys the environment.
Production/destruction is the inseparable binomial of the modern economy, the double face of its god Janus. The dynamics of the system are beyond any control; its internal and collateral effects are worrying and no viable solution has been found. Interests are as destructive as passions. The promised remedy becomes as bad as the disease.
Anarchy presides over both the power rivalry of the powers and the general capitalist growth. The absence of a higher authority of regulation – the anti-state goal to which the new libertarians aim – leaves humanity at the mercy of an allegedly spontaneous self-regulation. That faith is worth as much as a prayer. In other words, the rationality of the parts does not translate into the rationality of the whole. The “invisible hand” of the market frequently slaps the market, with or without artificial intelligence.
On a global level, advanced capitalism is subject to the same trend as that described many times on a smaller scale, namely: the tragedy of the commons (Garrett Hardin, 1968). In short: the uncontrolled use of shared resources, motivated by individual interests, can lead to their depletion, and this harms everyone in the long term. In the words of Werner Herzog’s film, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, “each for himself and God against all.”
There are three proposed solutions to escape the dilemma: state regulation, privatization, or collective agreements to manage common resources in a sustainable way. At the global level, the absence of a supranational authority (first solution), and the rivalry between powers (variant of the second), means that only the third (collective agreements) can work. The demonstration of this third strategy earned Elinor Olson the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009.
This argument leads me to a final question, in pursuit of peace and a sustainable and calmer life for human beings on the planet. How do the two heads of the two-faced eagle collide or combine? Or if you prefer, how do the two faces of the god Janus dialogue or fight?
The first observation is that it is essential to favor “realistic” diplomacy and negotiation over confrontation. This stance moderates both inter-power rivalry and market dysfunctions. Unfortunately, the isolationist proposals (tariffs, mercantilism, etc.) of the new US administration subordinate the promise of the free market to geopolitical rivalry. The problem is that every serious nationalist-military conflict today leads to the probability–not just the possibility–of nuclear war, which must be avoided anyway.
Fortunately, there are points of common interest among all the great powers and the rest of the nations regarding the environment, climate change, demographic pressures, humanitarian assistance, and arms races, in order to move forward in sensible discussions.
With regard to mutual security and competition for resources and power, there are some ways to avoid a suicidal escalation. Avoiding this tragedy according to Mearsheimer is difficult, since states cannot trust the intentions of others and must prioritize strategies such as the balance of power (the Kissinger issue) or delegate responsibilities. However, a prudent foreign policy could mitigate risks, such as avoiding direct confrontations and managing strategic alliances.
An image comes to mind in this regard, and in relation to the United States. As primus inter pares among most nations, this country should play several simultaneous games of chess. With the only peer competitor which is China, he should play a single, long game of Go. And all this under the general and consensual prohibition of not kicking the board. Will this “America First” rise to the challenge?
I believe that the coming years will not be conducive to sensible geopolitics. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves to sail through stormy seas. Each nation and the other powers will have to contribute a great deal of prudence in the face of the failure of the United States. Rogue countries (examples: North Korea in one camp, Israel in the other) must be contained without offending the great rivals. Perhaps in this way we will escape a very unpleasant collective fate.
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Some References
Garrett Harding, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162 (3859): 1243–1248, 1968.
Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests. Arguments for London Review of Books Capitalism Before its Triumph, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Powers Politics, New York: Norton, 2001.
John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs, Summit 2024, regarding the two geopolitical perspectives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFtyDy_Bt0
Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Tom Stevenson, “Ill-Suited to Reality,” regarding NATO illusions, London Review of Books, Vol.46, Number 15, 1 August 2024.
Eliot Weinberger, “Incoming,” regarding Trump’s cabinet, London Review of Books, Vol.46, Number 24, m 26 December 2024.
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