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SPACE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: DO STATES NEED TO EXPAND?
W.J. KORAB-KARPOWICZ
Department of International Relations Bilkent University 06800 Ankara, Turkey
On the time been the prestige factor and the symbolic significance of territory, as well as the idea of violence to realize national destiny and self-renovation, have played significant role in state expansionism. The same role political ambitions and economic benefits have played. Nowadays the greatness of the state means not aggression, but the high living standards, intellectual and moral qualities that its citizens have.
According to the Roman historian Justinus, in the beginning of the affairs of peoples and nations, it was the custom to guard rather than extend the boundaries of the kingdom; and kingdoms were kept within the boundaries of each ruler’s native land. Ninus, king of the Assyrians, through a new lust for empire, first changed the old and, as it were, ancestral custom of nations. He first made war on his neighbors, and wholly subdued nations as yet untrained to resist. Having mastered his nearest neighbors, he went on to others, strengthened by the accession of forces, and by making each fresh victory the instrument of that which followed, he conquered the whole East.
Expansionism thus has a long history, going back to the times of Ninus. But what are the reasons for expansion? Do states need to expand? In order to answer these questions, I will consider two cases, those of Athenian and German expansionism. I will also look into the history of political theory, and will place theories of expansionism in the wider context of the doctrine of raison d’état.
In the antiquity empire was compared to tyranny. Such comparisons can be found in the “History of the Peloponnesian War” of Thucydides and in Aristotle’s “Politics”. Like the ancient tyrant who, moved by his lusts and whims, would subject everyone to his will, the ancient empire, of which that of Ninus is one example, would emerge because of simple lust for domination and the desire for personal or national self-aggrandizement. However, we can also fmd attempts in ancient times to justify the expansion of empires and states on a theoretical basis. During the debate at Sparta described by Thucydides in his “History”, the Athenians bluntly state that they are worthy of ruling an empire because of their “honor, fear, and profit”. Empire is thus represented as being based upon prestige, security, and material progress. Also, Pericles, the Athenian leader, makes clear in his war speeches that the glory and freedom of Athens depend on it being an imperial city. Only in this position, he claims, can it defend itself against external threats. He believes—like many statesmen after him would—that security requires expansion. Athens cannot fall back upon inactivity, because inactivity leads to subjection. It must instead be involved in constant action. This means continual consolidation of its resources and conquests.
The imperial and expansionist ambitions of Athens ended after the Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Pericles’ policies proved to be shortsighted indeed. He undermined the power and security of his country by provoking an overwhelming coalition of opposing states. Contrary to his vision, Athens is remembered not for its domination of
its neighbors or its territorial conquests, but for the immortal works of Plato and Aristotle. Classical political philosophy was bom in Athens, and it is there where we can find the first critique of expansionism.
In his “Politics ”, Aristotle attempts to show that the state’s greatness does not depend upon its territorial expansion. What would be the purpose of the state being large, he asks rhetorically, if its people were badly educated, brutalized by militaristic or expansionist longings, and often drunk? What is essential for greatness is not the state’s size, he argues, but the intellectual and moral qualities of its people. “So, peoples’ nobility, not brutality, should play the leading role”. Even a small state can be prosperous provided that it can maintain itself well and is well-governed. Consequently, neither war nor domination constitute for Aristotle the essence of politics, nor are they needed for a state’s well-being. The idea, which many espouse today, that politics is all about power, is precisely what he argues against. In the realist view of the world, military security is the dominant goal of states. Aristotle thinks otherwise. In normal, peaceful conditions, non-military goals can never rightly be subordinated to military ones. While security issues are meritorious insofar as they serve to forward the highest end of the state—a good life—they are not if they become ends in themselves. To illustrate this point, he gives the examples of Sparta and other cities, which, preoccupied with power and security, brutalized their youth through rigorous exercises and training that stimulated warlike attitudes.
In Western political theory, which was bom in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and further developed during Roman and medieval times, it was long ago recognized that making war on one’s neighbors due to a lust for domination was an act of injustice. In a striking criticism of aggression, St. Augustine compared a war of expansion to a great robbery. The distinction between just and unjust war goes back at least to Cicero. Although the ancient moral skeptics argued that it was impossible for an empire to acquire provinces without injustice, they still would link issues of politics and ethics together. In the tradition of classical and Christian political thought, then, there was a unity of politics and ethics, and all morality was regarded as one. The classical and Christian political thinkers would reject the idea of a double morality, one private and one public, or one towards those who belong to our community and one to others, and recognize instead universal moral values. It was Machiavelli who, standing at the advent of modernity, invented the doctrine of raison d’état and first successfully challenged this tradition.
Machiavelli himself in fact never used the phrase ragione di stato (reason of state) or its French equivalent, raison d’état, in his works. Nevertheless, the contention that it is appropriate for a sovereign to engage in a morally reprehensible course of action in the interest of the state is central to his political theory. Under his influence, this view of international conduct became the main theme of an entire genre of 16-century Italian political writings, the most notable contribution to which was Giovanni Botero’s work Ragione di Stato. It was, however, in 17-century France, in the policies of Cardinal Richelieu, and later in Germany, that Machiavellian political ideas came to prominence and contributed to a significant evolution of the doctrine of raison d’état. Frederick the Great (who called Machiavelli the enemy of humanity but closely followed his advice) expressed this doctrine in the statement that “princes are slaves to their resources, the interest of the state is their law, and this law is inviolable”. Raison d’état became the main principle of European interstate relations, and served as a justification of the methods a number of statesmen felt obliged to affirm in their foreign policy practice. These methods, outlined in “The Prince”, involved conquering either by force or by fraud, destroying cities, putting to death anyone who could do harm, moving inhabitants from one place to another, establishing colonies, replacing old institutions with new ones, and extending the
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state’s territory and power at the expense of its neighbors. The question of international ethics, in the sense of norms restraining states in their mutual relations, either did not arise or was subordinated to the competitive struggle for power.
What ultimately counted for Machiavelli was not moral scruples or norms, but raison d’état: whatever is good for the state. Machiavellism has become associated with a certain kind of political behavior in which expediency is placed above morality. This kind of behavior of course existed long before Machiavelli, and was debated by political thinkers early on. The arguments of the Athenian envoys presented in the “Melian Dialogue” by Thucydides, of Thrasymachus in Plato’s “Republic”, and of Cameades, to whom Grotius refers in his works on international law, all furnished a great challenge to the classical and Christian view of the unity of politics and ethics. However, before Machiavelli, this amoral or immoral stream of thinking had never prevailed over the heretofore dominant tradition of Western political thought. It was only the Machiavellian justification of resorting to evil as a legitimate means of achieving certain political ends that persuaded so many thinkers and political practitioners after him. This justification was carried further by the theorists of the doctrine of raison d’état. The tension between expediency and morality lost its validity in the sphere of politics. The concept of a double morality, private and public, was invented. Ethics was subjected to politics. The good of the state was interpreted as the highest moral value. National power was declared to be a nation’s right and duty. In the Marxist version of this doctrine, a superior type of morality was assigned to the revolutionary cause. In the name of such a “higher” morality, identified with the interest of the proletariat or of the state, or of an elite nation or race, grave crimes against humanity have been committed. Actions that involved violent, cruel, or otherwise customarily immoral means were regarded as legitimate in terms of the exigencies of “progressive change.” The doctrine of raison d’état has thus given theoretical foundations to expansionism. I shall illustrate this point by considering perhaps the most striking case, which is the German expansionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
One reason why a state may engage in territorial expansion is its desire to establish its position as a political great power. As Aristotle Kallis argues in his recent study, 19-century Germany’s ambition to be a great power, which led initially to its unification and then to its pursuit of expansionist policies, was conceptualized in the pre-existing pattern of domination, in Europe and overseas. Britain and France had already developed a network of colonial possessions that offered them economic benefits and prestige. In such an environment, territory thus became a sine qua non for the political ascendancy of new nations, such as Germany after its unification. The prestige factor and the symbolic significance of territoiy would in fact become more important than economic or political considerations. Throughout the period of German history between unification and the First World War, territorial expansion remained high on the official agenda. The question was not whether to expand, but only what the most beneficial type of expansion would be. The advocates of colonialism regarded overseas expansion as preferable in that it combined the benefits of territorial expansion and economic growth without affecting the European balance of power. They also regarded colonial possessions as a symbol of high status in political terms. On the other hand, the so-called “continentalists” supported the contrary view. Expanding on the European continent and achieving political prestige in Europe were necessary preconditions for a successful expansionist policy overseas. This view eventually prevailed. The enthusiastic support of the First World War on the part of the majority of the German population and all of the country’s political parties, including the SPD, was fuelled by expectations of massive territorial gains in both Western and the Eastern Europe.
Whereas pre-1914 German expansionism was motivated primarily by the desire to complete the country’s unification and attain the status of a great power, the German expansionism of the 1930s and 1940s under the Nazis included additional dimensions. Most importantly, it was prescribed by fascist ideology. Expansionism, as Hitler repeatedly emphasized, was the historic right of the “elite nation” to possess space equivalent to its qualitative superiority. The fascist ideologists conceived of history as a continual struggle for survival and domination. Thus, in Nazi Germany, expansionism ceased to be merely an option for foreign policy; it became a necessity for maintaining the nation’s existence. The belief that history was decided by constant struggle, wherein the fittest (the elite nations, races, and civilizations) would prevail, gave rise to a cult of violence. War and violence became the ultimate expressions of the will to dominate, both as means of realizing the national destiny and also as ends in themselves, in the form of national self-renovation. In this context of elitism and violent activism, the idea of living space (Lebensraum) was put forward as a pivotal object of fascist expansion and the ultimate measure of the success of fascist revolution. By the time Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf’, the idea of spatial expansion in order to acquire Lebensraum was already equated in his mind with the idea of Drang nach Osten. He argued that as a continental power, Germany could only acquire sufficient living space at the expense of Poland and the Soviet Union, and in fact would have to do so in order to improve the living conditions of its growing population. The idea of living space was not a conceptual innovation on the part of either Hitler in particular or the fascists in general. It had previously informed the expansionist programs of various nationalist organizations. However, it was transformed into the ultimate ideological symbol of Nazi expansionism, linking the national ambitions for power with fascist aspirations for world domination.
When we look at the historical German case, we see that expansionism was justified by the prestige factor of great power status, the material factor of additional living space, and the ideological factor of life being viewed as a struggle, which only the fittest survived. In these policies of expansionism, the only consideration was the interest of the German state. There was no consideration of the harm such policies could bring to other states and nations. In accordance with the modem separation between politics and ethics, ethical questions in the classical sense were not raised. A new morality was invented to justify the state’s aggrandizement and the violence done to other people. Since the world of ethics was left behind, the only reality that remained was the reality of the struggle for power. If there is no choice for us modems but to accept such a reality, if in the anarchic international system ethical and legal norms indeed do not really hold, then we would do well to at least listen to a founding father of modernity, Thomas Hobbes. Without engaging in ethical discourse, Hobbes gives us a piece of advice: the true sovereign should always recognize the imprudence of adventurous foreign policies. Discussing this issue, he frequently refers to the unwarranted hazard of war or what he describes as the “uncertain die” in war. Not only does he warn against a potential lack of prudence in relation to policies of expansionism, against the overestimation of one’s own strength and the dangers of imperial overextension (which would lead in Germany’s case to two terrible defeats), but he also observes that expansionism has a fundamental weakness, in that it makes real union or solidarity within the commonwealth impossible. One cannot build a successful empire by including in it people who, having being conquered and made subject to the dominant state, cannot identify with it and obey only because they are forced to.
From the classical moral and legal perspective, which, as a result of the work of Hugo Grotius and other great lawyers of the past, is incorporated into today’s international law, war by which a state aims to achieve territorial expansion can never be justified. Such a
war is considered a crime, and can be justified neither on the basis of prestige, nor by the desire for additional lands, nor for reasons of self-defense. One state may not attack or annex the territory of another state and justify its act of aggression even by citing the need to enhance its own security. However, since we modems, living in the shadow of Machiavelli and Hobbes, do not like to use ethical language to evaluate international events, let me conclude this paper by attempting to address the question: “Do states need to expand?” from a prudential perspective.
Prestige, honor, and glory are not acceptable reasons for territorial expansion, especially if such expansion involves aggression. For, really, how can honor or glory be awarded to those who destroy other human lives? It was an old custom to call famous conquerors “great,” but this is largely a misunderstanding. In spite of what he accomplished, Alexander the Great should rather be called Alexander the Low, for he never understood the instruction of his great teacher, Aristotle. True human greatness can never be based on the lust for domination and the bringing of harm. Greatness is really a domain of the human mind. Economic advancement also cannot constitute an acceptable reason for expansion. Although conquest can indeed increase the conqueror’s power, and additional natural resources can contribute to a country’s wealth, many of the wealthiest countries do not in fact have many of the latter. Historical examples show that costs of expansion often outstrip its benefits. War rarely makes a country rich, especially in today’s economic conditions, except insofar as it benefits those who sell arms. The source of a countiy’s wealth is, rather, peaceful cooperation. Above all, expansion cannot be justified by an ideology based on belief in the superiority of one’s nation, race, or civilization. To engage in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the name of one’s superiority is a contradiction in terms and a tragic misunderstanding. Human superiority can be expressed only as a set of intellectual and moral qualities that a given individual or a society as a whole represents. The purposive destruction of human lives and the cultivation of violence are, on the contrary, indicative of baseness and human depravity.
Of the four reasons for expansion discussed above, only self-defense merits some qualified affirmation. If we have a neighboring state that has clearly proven to be an aggressor and is finally defeated, annexing a part of its territory to weaken its future power and improve our future security may be justified. But this should be an exception rather than the rule, and should always be approved by the international community. For, one cannot be a judge in one’s own case. To add one more prudential argument against expansionism, expansion always brings about international opposition. Expansionist ambitions and aggressive foreign policies on the part of one state inevitably provoke other states to form coalitions as a counterbalance. Hence, expansionism ultimately leads to international conflict, and as a foreign policy is largely counterproductive. Instead of creating prosperity, it leads countries to self-destruction.
It is veiy natural for human beings to be ambitious, both individually and collectively. If we are citizens of an ambitious nation, we want others to admire us and perceive us as great. But the road to greatness does not lead through invasion or subjection. To build up one’s greatness and prestige does not entail devising plans to put down others who do you no harm; it also does not involve wasting national energies and citizens’ lives by forcefully holding on to a tiny province whose unwilling inhabitants are likely never to identify themselves with the nation as a whole. Further, the measure of true greatness is neither power nor wealth, which are only its by-products. What constitutes the greatness of a state is the qualities that its citizens have. Expansionism is self-defeating, for by inculcating warlike attitudes, it ends by brutalizing and demoralizing those citizens. It is not the expansion of territory, but the cultivation of intellectual and moral qualities - industry,
courage, integrity, justice, moderation, and prudence—that makes people and nations great.
On the time been the prestige factor and the symbolic significance of territory, as well as the idea of violence to realize national destiny and self-renovation, have played significant role in state expansionism. The same role political ambitions and economic benefits have played. Nowadays the greatness of the state means not aggression, but the high living standards, intellectual and moral qualities that its citizens have.
ПРОСТРАНСТВО В МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЯХ: НУЖДАЮТСЯ ЛИ ГОСУДАРСТВА В РАСШИРЕНИИ?
В.Ю. КОРАБ-КАРПОВИЧ
Отделение международных отношений Университет Билкент 06800 Анкара, Турция
В разные исторические периоды факторы престижности и символической значимости присоединяемых территорий, а также идея внешнего насилия как обязательного условия национальной судьбы и самообновления этноса играли не меньшую роль в стремлении государственных правителей к экспансионизму, чем политические амбиции и экономические выгоды. С позиций сегодняшнего дня величие государства не в агрессии, но в обеспечении высокого уровня жизни граждан, в реализации базовых духовных и моральных потребностей.
