Bryan Caplan criticizes Sean McMeekin’s claim that there are usually ulterior motives great powers defend smaller states. While I am not the biggest fan of the “realist” tradition in political science, Caplan has a long history of having a poor handle of what is “rational” and what is not. This late post of his also reminds me of the discussion of his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, during last year’s Critical Review seminar. Overall, I think that Caplan has it partly right, but mostly wrong.

I’d like to go in reverse order, addressing the (numbered) points he brings up in the above-linked post.

The collapse of European monarchies: Caplan argues that given that many of the European monarchies who entered the First World War did not manage to come out intact or stable, how could we possibly argue that governments go into war in pursuit of their interests? We could ask this question another way, and I think it would make Caplan reconsider his argument. If Caplan were to write a book that he thought would make him a famous economist, but it turns out that the book makes him the laughing stock of the profession, could we say that Caplan did not make the decision to write the book out of self-interest? This is exactly the argument Jeffrey Friedman made against his book The Myth of the Rational Voter — you cannot mistake error for irrationality.

When Nicholas II went to war with Austria-Hungary and Germany, I doubt he expected that the war would be disastrous for the Russian army and would lead to the loss of his crown. Neither do I think that Nicholas II expected for much of Western Russia to be occupied by the Germans. Nor do I think that any other monarchy expected to find its power-base undermined. For the most part, most leaders probably expected the war to be short.

What occurred was an error in judgment. Relevant governments made bad decisions based on disastrous miscalculations.

A Few Historical Facts:

Caplan writes, “If the First Gulf War was all about oil, what was the point of indefinite sanctions against Iraq after the end of the war?” If the First Gulf War was fought over oil, it was fought over Kuwait’s oil, not Iraq’s. Many of Kuwait’s oil fields were set ablaze during the Iraqi Army’s retreat during that war. Oil was probably not the only reason we fought that war, but I think it is obvious there were ulterior motives. If the United States was interested in protecting foreign States just for the sake of upholding their sovereignty, why doesn’t it intervene in the various other wars being fought around the globe? He brings up the examples of Vietnam and Korea — this is a bit perplexing, since these wars were fought with underlying motives, although in the case of the former there may have been the unintended effect of snowballing participation (i.e. once we were involved, we had to win). That many of these wars required cassus belli — such as a physical invasion of the country you are defending — doesn’t disprove the realist interpretation. You have to sell the war to your people. The same goes for a more obvious example: the Second World War. Why did we wait for a physical Japanese attack on our assets to enter the war? Because the administration had to sell the war as a defensive one. Finally, large military powers take on client states, because they have ulterior motives concerning these client states. Client states aren’t taken on just for the sake of having them, so Caplan’s point here (1) is very confusing.

Idealism: As I have been taught it, my big problem with realism is that it assumes the State to be a rational actor (although, I am sure there are realists who break from this tradition and speak of bureaucracy as as a group of individuals). Also, I do think it is unrealistic to assume that actors are not led by idealism. Hitler’s motives during the Second World War were probably driven, in large part, by idealism — there was no clear benefit for Germany from war, except maybe driving its industry (which was not geared towards total war until late 1942, anyways), apart from whatever satisfaction Hitler got.

But, in a state of affairs where there are a large number of relevant political actors (the relevant part of a bureaucracy), idealism is likely to play less of a role. At the same time, we have to guard against perceptions of idealism. Just because politicians sell us an ideal doesn’t mean they actually believe in it themselves. Also, these ideals are shaped by realist factors. The United States most likely fought the Second World War in large part to protect its allies, but these concerns were born from realist international relations.

Ultimately, I think political motivations are largely driven by both idealist and realistic factors. This is how I approach political science, at least. It may be that realism is adopted more because it is difficult to objectively interpret historical actors’ motives. However, at the same time, I think there has been a greater trend of realist motives as written history has become more complete — this seems like strong evidence in favor of realism.