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Now let's talk about what happened to structural realism, how structural
realism developed in the 21st century after the end of the Cold War.
And the main thing is the following, despite structural realism could not
explain the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union itself,
and it has enormous troubles in explaining short term developments in
the international system back at that time, especially in the 1990s.
Structural realism turned out to be much more correct and
accurate in explaining long-term trends,
long-term a structural trajectories.
And the further we go from the end of the Cold War and to the 21st century,
the clearer it becomes that strategically, the predictions and
assumptions of structural realism about the post-Cold War period were correct.
Indeed, let's remember Kenneth Waltz and
other structural realists warned against the post-Cold War instability.
They claimed that the post-Cold War international system will be unstable.
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And 10, 15 years after the end of the Cold War.
And 10, 15 years, historically, this is just nothing, it is a blink of an eye.
So after that very extremely short period, great power balancing and
great power competition once again became the norm and
the reality of the international system.
It reemerged already in the end of 2000s.
And especially became outright after 2014, the escalation
of Ukraine crisis and the emergence of the new US-Russian confrontation.
So the current confrontation between Russia and the United States.
The growing and deepening rivalry between the United States and China.
The rivalry between China and India.
International relations in Asia where mistrust and zero sum logic prevails.
International relations in the Middle East where it's simply a war of all
against all.
They all prove, all these factors,
prove that the post-Cold War period is indeed becoming really unstable.
There is the pervasive growth of instability globally and
regionally throughout all over the world.
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Another prediction of structural realists was about instability in Europe,
and a threat of the new great power war in Europe
after the collapse of the Cold War and bipolarity.
Well, for some time, a great power war in Europe was seemed unthinkable.
Indeed, there was no return of historic rivalry between Germany and
France, France and Britain, Britain and Germany.
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And from the Russia-West perspective,
a big war seems not that unthinkable nowadays.
Look, Russia and the United States were at the brink of
direct military clash three times after 1991.
The first one was in Kosovo in 1999 when Russia occupied the Prishtina airport.
And NATO's Supreme Commander Wesley Clark gave an order to kick the Russians out.
The second time was in the Russian-Georgian War,
the Georgian conflict of 2008, when the George Bush,
Jr. administration in the United States contemplated about the use of force,
the use of American force, against the Russian troops in Georgia.
And the third is, of course, Ukraine crisis of today.
So even in the post-Cold War period, the intensity of Russia-US rivalry and
contradictions was so high with that we were at the brink,
three times we were at the brink of the war, of direct use of force.
And what kind of environment do we have today?
We have US-Russian confrontation, which is for a good long while, unfortunately.
We have militarization of Europe.
NATO expands its military presence in Poland and the Baltic states.
Russia expands its military presence in the western part of Russia.
We have a continuous collapse, devastation and collapse, of arms control.
Including Europe, the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty,
the so-called CFE treaty, is nowadays dead.
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We have the emergence of new theaters of war and
new ways to inflict damage towards each other, such as the cyber field.
So all of this combined, again, some experts claim that we
are structurally in a pre-war situation among the East and
the West, in the Russia-West relations.
So thus, from the current perspective, the predictions of Kenneth Waltz,
Christopher Lane, and other structural realists about the potential
war in Europe after the collapse of the Cold War, were right.
But these predictions were correct from the long-term perspective,
not from the short-term perspective.
And finally, structural realists warned against anti-hegemonic balancing and
claimed that emergence of the United States as the sole superpower
would cause consolidation of other powers against the hegemon.
This was the argument made by Kenneth Waltz and
other structural realists in late 80s, early 90s.
Yes, it did not happen immediately, in early 1990s.
But attempts to start balancing against the United States
did take place already in 1990s.
Let's remember the so-called Primakov's triangle.
Yevgeny Primakov became Russian Foreign Minister in 1996, and
he immediately offered the idea of the triangle
creation of Russia, China, India as three
non-Western great powers coalition to counterbalance the United States.
And since the middle of 1990s, the logic of Russian foreign policy was indeed
counterbalance the United States, together with the other non-Western great powers.
Yes, this counter balancing was not successful, but
in terms of Russian policies, it still existed.
And later, in conditions of the power shift, in conditions of the rise of China,
rise of Russia, non-Western centers of power becoming increasingly powerful.
This great power competition and
counterbalancing towards the United States became outright, open, and vigorous.
And today, in realities of after 2014, after
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Ukraine crisis, there are no doubts that Russia and
China conduct the policy of counterbalancing the United States.
So what Kenneth Waltz and others predicted back then, in early 1990s,
became really the reality of 2014 and afterwards.
Moreover, you can counterbalance the United States, not just in the open, and
vigorous, and outright way as Russia and
China do, but also in a soft way, in a different way.
And the scholars like Robert Pape and T.V.
Paul already back in 1990s argued that counterbalancing
does not necessarily involve direct political conflict.
On the contrary, counterbalancing against the hegemon
could be conducted in a soft, and almost invisible, way.
By limiting hegemonic influence with norms, with institutions, and
other non-confrontational instruments.
And according to Pape and T.V.
Paul, this was the policies of even American allies and partners.
So the United States is counterbalanced by the non-Western great powers Russia and
China directly and by the Western powers indirectly through soft balancing.
Thus you see the structural realist predictions indeed turned out to be right.
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Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
