the theory of collective security and its limitations in explaining international organization
TRANSCRIPT
THE THEORY OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND ITS LIMITATIONS IN EXPLAINING INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
BY
LAWRENCE MWAGWABIMA DIPLOMACY
Claude Jr., notes that the idea that a peaceful and stable world order can be maintained
without the benefit of a collective security system has been seen by most persons concerned
with international organization as a far-fetched idea1. The theory of collective security deals
directly with the issue of how to cause peace2. It takes cognisance of the fact that military
power is a central fact of international politics and is likely to remain the case for some time.
Thus, the key to enhancing stability in the world is to manage properly military power. For
advocates of collective security, it is institutions that are vital in managing power
successfully3. This essay will critically analyze the theory of collective security and its
limitation in explaining international organization. There will be explanation of concepts such
as “collective security”, “balance of power”, “global government” and “international
organization” which are terms that feature prominently in the theory of collective security. An
in-depth analysis of the theory of collective security will be provided with a view of
providing its key arguments, relevance, strengths and limitations. Relevant examples will also
be given in relation to and explaining the theory. A conclusion will be drawn explaining the
significance of this theory and its relevance in present times.
According to Danchin, the concept of collective security is “notoriously difficult to
define, as the term is associated with a loose set of assumptions and ideas and its continued
existence remains a contested concept” 4. Claude Jr., agrees and further suggests that when
1
1
I. L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th edition., (New York: Random House, 1971), p. 245
2
2
L. L. Martin, “Institution and Cooperation: Sanctions during the Falkland Islands Conflict, “International Security, Vol. 14 No. 4 (Spring, 1992), pp. 174-175
3
3
J. J. Mearscheimer, “The Promise of International Institutions”, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/1995), pp 26 -27
4
4
P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 40
the term collective security if used loosely, appears to be a synonym of peace or world order
while it has also been used to refer to any and all multilateral efforts to deal with the problem
of international peace and security, rather than a specifically to the system that gained
prominence after the First World War5. Roberts and Kingsbury define collective security as
“an arrangement where each state in the system accepts that security of one of them is a
concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to aggression”6. It is the
foundational principle of the League of Nations: namely that member states would take a
threat or attack on one member as an assault on all of them.
Kupchan et al defines collective security as, “an agreement between states to abide by
certain norms and rules to maintain stability and when necessary, band together to stop
aggression” 7. This definition captures three distinct ideas: the purpose or end of stopping
“aggression”; the reliance on legal norms to determine both the meaning of that term and the
appropriate response; and the rejection of self-help in favour of collective action8. Thus,
collective security rests on the idea of institutionalizing the legal use of force, “to reduce
5
5
I. L. Claude, Jr., Collective Security In Europe and Asia, (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, 1992), pp 7-8
6
6
A. Roberts and B. Kingsbury, “Introduction: The UN’s Role in International Society since 1945”, in A. Roberts and B. Kinsgsbury (eds.) United Nations, Divided World, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 30
7
7
C. A. Kupchan and C. A. Kupchan, “The Promise of Collective Security,” International Security, Vol. 20 (Summer 1995), pp 52-53
8
8
P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)University of Maryland School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series (2009), p. 41
reliance of self-help as a rather crude instrument of law enforcement.” 9 When these ideas are
brought together, the concept of collective security may be further defined as:
“... an institutionalized universal or regional system in which States have agreed by treaty jointly to meet any act of aggression or other illegal use of force resorted by a member State of the system.”
The concept is primarily directed against the illegal use of force within the group of states
forming the collective security system rather than an external threat. This idea is captured in
Johnson and Niemeyers definition of collective security as:
“ a system based on the universal obligation of all nations to join forces against an aggressor state as soon as the fact of aggression is determined by established procedure. In such a system, aggression is defined as a wrong in universal terms and an aggressor, as soon as he is identified, stands condemned. Hence, the obligation of all nations to take action against him is conceived as a duty to support right against wrong. It is equally founded upon the practical expectation that a communal solidarity of all nations would from the outset make it clear to every government that aggression does not pay10.”
In order to understand the underlying logic of collective security, it would be important
to distinguish collective security from two closely related terms, namely balance of power
and global government. A balance of power arrangement between states rests on the idea of
decentralization. States act as separate units without subordinating their autonomy or
sovereignty to any central agency established for the management of power relations. Thus,
“singly or in combinations reflecting the coincidence of interests, States seek to influence the
pattern of power distribution and to determine their own places within that pattern.”11 Under
this conception, states may form defensive alliances such as under the North Atlantic Treaty
9
9
J. Delbruck, “Collective Security” in R. Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Public International Law, (Oxford: Elswevier, 1992), p. 646
10
1
H. C. Johnson and G. Niemeyer, “Collective Security: The Validity of an Ideal,” International Organization, Vol. 8 (1954), pp 19-20
11
1
I. L. Claude, Jr., “The Management of Power in the Changing United Nations”, International Organization Vol. 15 (Spring 1961), pp. 219 - 221
Organization (NATO) against actual or perceived external threats. These sorts of flexible
alliances allow for recurrent shifts of alignment to take place. The promise of order lies in the
expectation that competing claims to power will somehow balance and thereby cancel each
other out to produce “deterrence through equilibration.”12
On the other hand, global government posit the creation of a centralized institutional
system superior to individual states with a monopoly on power and the use of force similar to
that of well-ordered national state. This conception is based on depriving states of their
“standing as centers of power and policy, where issues of war and peace are concerned,” and
superimposing on them “an institution possessed of the authority and capability to maintain,
by unchallengeable force so far as may be necessary, the order and stability of a global
community.” 13 Global government is thus a normative or ideal vision of the international
political community under a universal law which does not currently exist.
The concept of collective security sits uneasily between and incorporates elements of
both these elements (balance of power and global government) thus functioning as a
dialectical notion of “order without government”14 in an effort to manage the problem of
power relations between states by “superimposing a scheme of partially centralized
management upon a situation in which power remains fused among national units.”15 The
hybrid system involves a centralization of authority over the use of force to the extent that
states are deprived of the legal right to use force at their own discretion and agree to follow
12
1
Ibid., p., 222
13
1
Ibid., p., 222
14
1
I. L. Claude, Jr. “An Autopsy of Collective Security”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 90 (Winter 1975-6), p. 715
15
1
I. L. Claude, Jr., “The Management of Power in the Changing United Nations”, International Organization Vol. 15 (Spring 1961), p. 221
objective rules governing the threat and use of force requires an international organization
with authority not only to determine when a resort to force is illegitimate but also authority to
require states to collaborate under its direction in suppressing such use of force. This is
system of collective security falls short of creating an institution with a centralized monopoly
of force in the full sense implied by world government. The power wielded by a hybrid
collective security system thus can reach no further than that given by the sovereign will of
its members16.
International organization can be defined as “a process; international organizations
are representative aspects of the phase of that process which has been reached at any given
time”17. International organization includes not only interstate arrangements but,
increasingly, arrangements among non-governmental and transitional actors18. Thus, the
landscape of international organizations includes both inter-governmental organizations and
international non-governmental organizations19. Scholars also note that international
organization is a very broad concept, which has evolved with the practice of various forms of
international governance20.
16
1
P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)University of Maryland School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series (2009), p. 41
17
1
I. L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th Ed., (New York: Random House, 1964) p. 4
18
1
A. Thompson and D. Snidal, International Organization, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1999), pp 692 -722; 692
19
1
Ibid., p. 692
20
2
See I. L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th Ed., (New York: Random House, 1964) pp. 4 - 5 and A. Thompson and D. Snidal, International Organization, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1999), pp 692 -722; 692
In order to explain the theory of collective security, it would be important to examine
its key assumptions, relevance and limitations. Organski21, for instance, lists five basic
assumptions underlying the theory of collective security. That in an armed conflict, member
nation-states will be able to agree on which nation is the aggressor. All member nation-states
are equally committed to contain and constrain the aggression, irrespective of its source or
origin. All member nation-states have identical freedom of action and ability to join in
proceedings against the aggressor. The cumulative power of the cooperating members of the
alliance for collective security will be adequate and sufficient to overpower the might of the
aggressor. In the light of the threat posed by the collective might of the nations of a collective
security coalition, the aggressor nation will modify its policies, or if unwilling to do so, will
be defeated.
On the other hand, Claude Jr. 22, points out that the theory of collective security is less
heavily dependent on a set of assumptions about the nature and causes of war and thus claims
to be applicable to wider variety of belligerent (confrontational) situations, assuming that not
all wars occur from similar type of causes.
The first assumption of collective security is simply that wars are likely to occur and
that they ought to be prevented. Conflicts are an outcome of unreflective passion or deliberate
plan. Wars normally represent efforts to settle disputes, or they could be effects of indefinably
broad situations of hostility or calculated methods to realize ambitious designs of conquests.
Collective security is a specialized instrument of international policy in the sense that, it is
not only intended to prevent the arbitrary and aggressive use of force or provide enforcement
mechanisms for the whole body of international law but also assumes the centre piece of
21
2
A. F. K. Organski, World Politics, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958), p. 461
22
2
See I. L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th Ed., (New York: Random House, 1964), pp 249 - 284.
world order is the restraint of military action rather than the guarantee of respect for all
legal obligations. It also assumes that this ideal (that is, restraint of military action) may be
achieved or at least approximated by a reformation of international policy without changing
the structure of international system. Thus collective security holds the belief that
governments are open to (or agreeable with) moral appeals against the misuse of force, and
therefore have a rationalistic approach to peace. The rational appeal suggested by collective
security to potential belligerents is the use of diplomatic, economic, and military sanctions as
tools for inducing rational decision to avoid ‘threatened damage’ to national self-interest.
Collective security also assumes the moral clarity of the situation, the assignability of guilt
for a threat to or a breach of the peace. It focuses on the concept of aggression, with its
implication that the parties to a military encounter can be characterized as an aggressor and
victim. After the identification of the guilty party, collective security rejects primary concern
of international morality in favour of the principle of power. Collective security fails if
either of two assumptions proves invalid: that blame can be confidently assessed for
international crises, and that states are rationally calculating enough to behave prudently.
According to Claude Jr., collective security rests on the proposition that war can be
prevented by deterrent effect of overwhelming power of states that are too rational to invite
certain defeat. In this regard, it is similar to a balance of power system involving defensive
alliances. Collective security also assumes the satisfaction of unusually complex network of
requirements namely: those of a subjective character which are related to the general
acceptability of the responsibilities of collective security, and objective requirements, related
to the suitability of the global situation to the operation of collective security23.
23
2
Ibid., p. 251
On the subjective requirements, collective security is dependent on the positive
commitment to the value of world peace by a great mass of states. Its basic requirement is
that the premise of the “indivisibility of peace” should be deeply established in the thinking of
governments and peoples24. Collective security rests on the assumption that it is true, and that
governments and peoples can be expected to recognize and act on the truth, that the fabric of
human society has become so tightly knit and woven that a breach any where threatens
disintegration everywhere. Unchecked aggression in one direction encourages and helps to
empower its perpetrators to penetrate in other directions. Or, successful use of lawless force
in one situation contributes to the undermining of respect for the principle of order in all
situations.
The remoteness of aggression is irrelevant. This is exemplified by the British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain, when he switched from sighing, in the fall of 1938, “How
horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks
here, because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people we know nothing,” to
asserting, one year later, that “If, in spite of all we find ourselves forced to embark on a
struggle ... we shall not be fighting for the political future of a far-away city in a foreign land;
we shall be fighting for the preservation of those principles, the destruction of which would
involve the destruction of all possibility of peace and security for the peoples of the world.”25
Collective security requires rejection of the isolationist ideal of localizing wars, in terms of
both its possibility and its desirability and recommends to all the advice given by the
representative of Haiti in the League of Nations debate concerning Italian aggression to
24
2
Ibid., p. 251
25
2
Alan Bullock, “Hitler: Study in Tyranny”, (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 499, in I. L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th Ed., (New York: Random House, 1964) p. 251
Ethiopia, Alfred Nemours who said, “Great or small, strong or weak, near or far, white or
coloured, let us never forget that one day we may be somebody’s Ethiopia.”26
In requiring assurance of the indivisibility of peace, collective security demands a
factual agreement and then it imposes an ideal requirement, and that is, loyalty to the world
community. That the system will work if the peoples of the world identify their particular
interests so closely with the general interest of mankind that they go beyond just recognizing
the interdepence of nations to a feeling of involvement of all nations. The responsibility of
participating in a collective security system are too huge to be borne by any nation but people
motivated by genuine sympathy for any and all victims of aggression, and loyalty to the
values of a global system of law and order. The operation of a collective security system
must always be unstable unless there is belief that what is good for world peace is necessarily
good for the nation and is deeply engrained in governments and peoples27.
Another requirement of collective security is that all states be willing to entrust their
destinies to collective security28. This implies that confidence is an essential condition of the
success of a collective security system, thus states must be prepared to rely upon its
effectiveness and impartiality. In other words, if they accept the condition that they “entrust
their destinies” to collective security, then they are likely to behave in ways that will
maximise the chances that the confidence they have is justified.
26
2
F. P. Walters, “A History of the League of Nations,” (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 653 in I. L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th Ed., (New York: Random House, 1964) p. 251
27
2
Ibid., p.251
28
2
Ibid., p.255
On the objective requirements of collective security, it (collective security) also
depends upon meeting a number of basic conditions in the external sphere. The external
sphere includes the power, the legal and the organizational situations29. Thus the ideal milieu
for a collective security system is, firstly, a world characterized by a considerable diffusion of
power. This means that the most favourable situation would be one where all states
commanded equal resources, and the least favourable, one marked by the concentration of
effective power in a few major states. The existence of several great powers of roughly equal
strength is essential to collective security.
Secondly, a collective security system demands a substantial universality of
membership. Collective security does not, at the outset know “probable aggressor” and thus
assumes that any state may become an aggressor. Thus, collective security is a design for a
system of world order. The system is intended to provide security for every state against the
particular threat that arouses its sense of national anxiety. The other assumption is that if
every potential aggressor, every state which is or might become the source of the misgivings
of another state, were excluded, they system will have very few members indeed. Thus, a
workable system of collective security cannot afford the exclusion or abstention of a major
power. It is dangerous to have an important commercial and naval power on the outside. This
is because the refusal of these states to cooperate and to agree in the violation of their normal
rights is enough to make it difficult the effective application of economic sanctions to the
aggressor. Therefore, the doctrine of collective security relies heavily on the proposal that
non military measure will be sufficient to control aggression. Military commitments are
acceptable only because they will be invoked but economic sanctions are peculiarly
dependent on the application of universal application for their intended results30.
29
2
Ibid., p. 256
30
3
Ibid., pp. 256 - 257
Thirdly, collective security opts for preponderance (predominance, superiority) of
power being at the disposal of the international community rather than in the hands of a
single state for aggressive purposes. Thus, collective security purports to establish a portable
preponderance ready to be shifted to the defence of any victim of aggression and capable of
making such a victim superior to its adversary31. In an ideal sense, collective security makes
preponderance safe for the world by making use of it to the purpose of guaranteeing security
of members of the international community. This analysis then demonstrates the importance
for a collective security system of meaningful (objective) use of power diffusion and
organizational comprehensiveness32. Thus, if the power arrangements are such that no state
commands more than ten percent of the world’s strength, the possibility is open for collective
security to mobilize up to ninety percent against any state. On the other hand, if one state
controls a very substantial portion of global power resources, forty five percent, for instance,
the collective matching of its strength is doubtful and amassing overwhelming power against
it is clearly impossible33. Collective security system approaches all-inclusiveness, the
possibility of its disposing of sufficient resources to outclass any aggressor grows. However,
the converse of this is that this possibility is correspondingly diminished34.
It is important at this juncture to examine the historical evolution of conceptual and
institutional forms of collective security. Claude Jr., notes that at no time have all or even
most basic preconditions of collective security been realized, and that collective security has
31
3
Ibid., pp. 257 - 258
32
3
Ibid., p. 258
33
3
Ibid., p. 258
34
3
Ibid., p. 258
not become the operative system of international relations. Collective security theoretical
ideas find their origins from the seventeenth century onwards. In ideal terms, collective
security can be traced back to various schemes for perpetual peace proposed by William
Penn, Abbé de St. Pierre and Immanuel Kant. Penn’s Essay Towards the Present and Future
Peace of Europe in 1693 and Abbé de St. Pierre’s Projet pour render la paix perpetuelle en
Europe (Project to Render Perpetual Peace in Europe) in 1713 each advocated, for example,
a legal organization of European powers in a League comparable to modern international
organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations35. A century later, Kant’s
famous essay, On Perpetual Peace in 1875 argued that peace was an aim that mankind could
realize, but only incrementally. In each of these works, the essential ideas of collective
security began to take shape, that in the absence of a central authority for the enforcement of
law and maintenance of peace, it was necessary to provide a substitute solution; a substitute
can only be created by organizing the common defence of all states against the illegal use of
force; and the rights of states to use of force as a form of self-help or law enforcement must
be reduced to a minimum or limited to an interim measure36.
These ideas drew on deeper currents and shifts set in motion by the classicism born in
the wake of the 1648 “Peace of Westphalia” which sought to justify normative order by
building on equal right to sovereignty and independence of states37. Between the sixteenth
and seventeenth century, there was the emergence of the “liberal doctrine of politics” in
35
3
J. Delbruck, “Collective Security:, in R. Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Public International Law: International Relations and Legal Cooperation, (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishers, 1992), p. 646
36
3
P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)University of Maryland School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series (2009), p. 47
37
3
D. Kennedy, “Primitive Legal Scholarship”, Harvard International Law Journal, Vol. 27 (1986), p. 97
international legal thought. In this process, just war doctrine was transformed from ethical to
formally legal as the use of force was recast in legalistic terms as self-help remedy of the last
resort38.
The institutional origins of collective security may be traced back to the efforts of the
European powers to maintain peace and security within the nineteenth century international
system called “the Concert of Europe”. The Congress System or Concert of Europe
comprised of a Holy Alliance between Austria, Prussia and Russia and the Quadripartite
Alliance between Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia, with France entering in 1818 via the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle39. The Concert provided not only for the common defence against
external dangers in the classical form of a defensive alliance, but also for collective action by
the European Great Powers against any potential enemy within their own ranks40. As this
structure gradually collapsed, the peace movement began to advocate at the turn of the
century for renewed conceptions of collective security. Walter Schucking, for instance, was a
prominent advocate institutionalized peacekeeping machinery which, “he visualized as a
universal organization of states for the purpose of collective action and responsibility of
maintenance of international peace and security”41. While it was intended to be a collective
security arrangement, the League was in reality closer to a balance of power arrangement as it
38
3
M. Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument, (Helsinki: Finish Lawyers Publishing Company, 2005), p. 52
39
3
Op. Cit., p. 48
40
4
K. Knipping, H. Von Mangoldt and V. Rittergerger, The United Nations System and Its Predecessors, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 7-9
41
4
J. Delbruck, “Collective Security:, in R. Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Public International Law: International Relations and Legal Cooperation, (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishers, 1992), p. 649
lacked a coordinated, centralized decision-making procedure capable of applying sanctions
against aggressors internal to the system itself42.
It was not until the First World War, however, that an institutionalized system of
collective security was realized by the formation in 1919 of the League of Nation. The
creation of the League of Nations built on long standing efforts since the late nineteenth
century to reduce the effects of war on belligerents and civilians alike by adopting new rules
of humanitarian law and outlawing war and interstate aggression under international law43.
The League was effective in the 1923 Corfu crisis between Greece and Italy; Great Britain
and Turkey over Mosul (in the British Mandate of Iraq); Greece and Bulgaria over border
incursions by both parties; and Lithuania and Poland. The only deployments of the League of
Nations forces were in 1935 Saarland Plebiscite and in 1933 – 34 Colombian force acting
under League authority in the upper Amazon. However, these “successes were due, in small
part, to the fact that the disputes were of relatively minor nature and either concerned two
weak states which lacked powerful allies within the League Council, or alternatively involved
one party with such a preponderance of power that the other had no practical alternative but
to acquiesce in a settlement which the League felt able to endorse.” 44 The inability of the
League to prevent Italy from invading Ethiopia in 1936 provides the classic illustration of this
deficiency. The lesson drawn from the League of Nations was that without a “centralized
authoritative determination of whether an act of aggression has occurred or not, and of the
measures to be taken against the act of aggression, collective security may not become
effective.” Furthermore, it was “essential that the use of force be completely outlawed, except
42
4
H. McCoubery and J. C. Morris, “International Law, International Relations and Development of European Collective Security,” Journal of Armed Conflict Law Vol. 4 (1999), p. 195
43
4
Ibid., p. 649
44
4
Ibid, pp. 199 -200
for the purpose of self defence, in order to exclude any possibility for a State legally to
assume an aggressive policy45.”
After the League’s failure in the period before and during the Second World War, the
United Nations emerged in a renewed effort to realize the idea of collective security. The
United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, united in political terms as the
victorious powers emerging from the war, sought to overcome the weaknesses of the League
of Nations through two main innovations; first, through the drafting of a new Charter that
completely prohibited the use of force except as a means of individual and collective self-
defence; and second, by creating a new Security Council with the authority to determine
whether an act of aggression had occurred and what measures ought to be taken by its
member states in response46. These improvements in collective security were soon
diminished, however, by the onset of the Cold War and ensuing collapse of whatever political
solidarity had previously existed between the Soviet Union and the West47.
There four observations that one can make in the brief history of collective security.
First, historical development of the idea of collective security can be variously be interpreted
and is not a product of any simple or singular process48. The development of international
45
4
J. Delbruck, “Collective Security:, in R. Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Public International Law: International Relations and Legal Cooperation, (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishers, 1992), pp. 650 - 651
46
4
R. B. Russel, “Review: The United Nations and Collective Security: A Historical Analysis,” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 69 (1975), p. 928; see also A. Legault, I. Desmartis, J. Fournier and C. Thumerelle, “The United Nations at Fifty: Regime Theory and Collective Security”, International Journal, (Winter 1994-95), pp. 86 - 87
47
4
P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 49
48
4
Ibid., p. 49
legal norms pertaining to collective security in Europe and more generally should be seen as
a succession of responses to war crises with which existing ideal standards have adequately
failed to cope49. As McCoubrey and Morris observe, this process “may be traced historically
through the traumas, inter alia, of the Thirty Years War, the French revolutionary and
Napoleonic wars and the First and Second World War”50. Thus, the most recent efforts of the
United Nations reform are part of a far longer historical continuum of idealistic and
institutional change occurring in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe51.
Secondly, even though the United Nations was intended to be a new collective
security arrangement remedying the various deficiencies of the League of Nations, its
structure retained elements of the balance of power paradigm52. This is most clear in the veto
rule which allows each of the permanent five Great Powers the capacity to prevent Chapter
VII enforcement measures directed towards either themselves or any other state which may
choose to support or protect, or in other case in which they prefer to participate or to have
others participate in the enforcement measures under UN patronage. The veto provision
“renders collective security impossible in all instances most vital to the preservation of world
peace and order.”53 In this respect, the United States declared openly that, “if a major power
49
4
Ibid., p. 49
50
5
H. McCoubery and J. C. Morris, “International Law, International Relations and Development of European Collective Security,” Journal of Armed Conflict Law Vol. 4 (1999), p.196
51
5
P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 49
52
5
Ibid., p. 50
53
5
I. L. Claude, Jr., “The Management of Power in Changing United Nations,” International Organization. Vol. 15 (Spring 1961), p. 224
became an aggressor the Council had no power to prevent war.”54 Claude Jr., suggests that the
UN Charter is, “a curious amalgam of collective security, dominant in ideological terms, and
a balance of power, dominant in terms of practical of application.”55
Thirdly, the concept of global government has always figured as a distant and
unrealizable ideal in articulation and realization of collective security56. In this respect, World
Federalists and advocates for other forms of supranational organization have long attacked
collective security, “precisely because it neither anticipates nor promises to bring about the
drastic reduction of the role of the nation-state in the international system.”57Fourthly, the
idea of collective security is premised at some level of efficacy of the idea of the rule of law
in international relations58.
The theory of collective security has certain limitations. According to Morgenthau59,
the logic of collective security is flawless provided that it can be made to work under the
conditions prevailing in the international scene. For collective security to operate as a devise
545 UN Information Organizations and US Library of Congress, Documents of United Nations Conference on International Organization, (New York, 1945), p. 514 in P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 50
555 I. L. Claude, Jr., “The Management of Power in Changing United Nations,” International Organization. Vol. 15 (Spring 1961), p. 229
565 P. G. Danchin, “Things Fall Apart: The Concept of Collective Security in International Law” P. G. Danchin and H. Fisher (eds.) United Nations Reform and the New Collective Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 50
575 I. L. Claude Jr., “Comment on ‘An Autopsy of Collective Security’”, p. 716
585 D. Kennedy, “ Theses About International Law Discourse”, German Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 23 (1980), p. 353
595 H. J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: Struggle for Power and Peace. 7th Ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2006), p. 435
for prevention of war, three assumptions must be fulfilled. Firstly, the collective system must
be able to muster at all times such overwhelming strength against any potential aggressor or
coalition of aggressors that the latter would never dare to challenge the order defended by the
collective system. Secondly, at least those nations whose combined strength would meet the
requirement under (1) must have the same conception of security that they are supposed to
defend. Thirdly, those nations must be willing to sub-ordinate their conflicting political
interests to the common good defined in terms of the collective defense of all member states.
In practice, these three conditions have never been fulfilled thus rendering collective security
as being idealistic.
Another scholar, Mearscheimer60 criticizes collective security for the following
reasons. He argues that theory of collective security is an incomplete theory because it does
not provide a satisfactory explanation for how states overcome their fears and learn to trust
one another. In other words, it is too ideal. He also argues that it assumes too easily the
satisfaction of an extraordinarily complex network of requirements. Mearscheimer argues on
the contrary that states have abundant reasons to doubt that collective security will work
when aggression seems likely. States that ignore balance of power will perform worse than
others. He also argues that collective security has little support from historical record. That
peacekeeping has no role to play in disputes between great powers, and since it cannot use
coercion, is powerless. To him, concerts often emerge in the aftermath of great wars and are
merely a matter of classical balance of power which is why they only last as long as the
balance of power does not change.
Claude Jr., also points out that collective security is a crafted in such a way that it
provides certainty of collective action to frustrate aggression. Thus, a potential victim is
reassured and the potential law breaker will get deterrence because the resources of
60
6
J. J. Mearscheimer, “The Promise of International Institutions”, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/1995), pp. 5-49; see pp. 26 – 37 for specific critiques.
international community will be mobilized against any abuse of national power61. This ideal
encourages states to hope for collective support in case they are victims of attacks and the
aggressive state will receive deterrent action for abusing its national power. This is an ideal in
the sense that, it does not provide, “ifs and buts” It also fails to “stimulate the revisions of
state behavior at which it aims and upon which its ultimate success depends”, thus, “if the
hope which it encourages should prove illusory, it stands convicted of contributing to the
downfall of states whose security it purported to safeguard.” Also, “if it merely warns
potential aggressors that they may encounter concerted resistance, it fails to achieve full
effectiveness in its basic function, that of discouraging resort to violence, and if its warning
should be revealed as a bluff, it stimulates the contempt for international order which it is
intended to eradicate”. Therefore, the theory of collective security is filled with absolutes, of
which none is more basic than the requirement of certainty.
Another limitation outlined by Claude Jr., is what he refers to as “dilemma of
circularity”, where collective security cannot work unless policies of states are inspired by
confidence in the system, but requires exceptional act of political faith to repose confidence
in the system without previous demonstration that collective security works. Collective
security theory urges states to assume the application of the notion of self fulfilling prophecy
where if they act as if the collective security system works then it will do so, or else it will
fail. The reality is stakes are very high in the world of power politics that states do not lightly
undertake such experiment in the field of national security. Another criticism to collective
security is the charge that it risks turning every local encounter into a global conflict by
drawing outsiders into the fray62. Ideally, a collective security system would prevent war
616 I. L. Claude, Jr., “The Management of Power in Changing United Nations,” International Organization. Vol. 15 (Spring 1961), p. pp. 252 - 256
626 I. L. Claude Jr., Collective Security In Europe and Asia, (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, 1992), p. 25
altogether or convert the defeat of every aggressor into an easy police operation by
overwhelming forces. However, the world would prefer localization of clashes to a tactic that
increases the risk o exacerbating and spreading conflict.
In conclusion, it is noteworthy to point out that, it is evident it has been difficult to
realize a collective security system despite the commitment to the ideal. The commitment to
this ideal is a manifestation of yearning for peace and orders as an end rather a belief that the
theory of collective security provides a realistic and acceptable means to that end63. The
world is still very far from the satisfaction of the essential requirements for permitting the
operation of a collective security system, and such a system, even if feasible, is in fact a less
attractive ideal than it has been thought before. However, despite the difficulty of realizing
this ideal, theory of collective security has acquired ideological significance and its basic
elements will continue to influence the approach to peace through international organization.
Claude, Jr., could not have put it more partly when he notes, “the point remains that the
theory of collective security has inspired the growing recognition that a war any where is a
threat to order everywhere, has contributed to the maintenance of the realistic awareness that
it is states which are effective components of international society and which are
consequently the essential objects of a system aiming at control of international disorder, and
has stimulated the rudimentary development of a sense of responsibility to a world
community on the part of the reality of global governments and peoples ... collective security
is a snare as well as a delusion; as a formulation of the reality of global governments and the
ideal of global responsibilities, it may be a vital contribution to the evolutionary development
of conditions of peace through international organization.”64
63
6
Ibid., p. 283
64
6
Ibid., p. 284
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