Limitations to Multilateralism: II. Interdependence

““Interdependence” is the catchword of the day. As is with catchwords, the term usually goes undefined.”—Kenneth N. Waltz

 

Just as gold is alloyed with copper, so is multilateralism, conceptually, with interdependence. Rather than reinforcing the rational appeal of the former, the latter, in effect, weakens it. Kenneth N. Waltz devised two terms to define interdependence: sensitivity and vulnerability; where the first is described as adjustment in terms of responsiveness to relatively small cost and/or reward margins; and, the second as the parties’ equal exposure to reciprocity should their exchanges suffer any disruption (Waltz, 1979) [recommended read: Kenneth N. Waltz (1979), “Theory of International Politics,” Ch.7, “Structural Causes and Economic Effects”].

 

Interdependence, politically speaking (i.e. in the realm of international relations), is a flawed concept. Both sensitivity and vulnerability insinuate a sense of equality among units which is a relic that belongs to the ante-superpower world—to that of a multipolar world with five-to-eight great, but none super [emphasis added], powers. Coined by William Fox, an American political scientist, in 1944, the term superpower referred to the United States of America, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain (Fitzgerald and Packwood, 2013). 

 

I’m inclined to think [since I haven’t thus far had the chance to read Fox’s (1944) book, “The Super-Powers: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union—Their Responsibility for Peace”] that this initial application of the superpower status was not arbitrarily conferred upon the aforementioned victors of the Second World War, but on the basis of factual and concrete criteria—which conventional systems theory requires—and how those powers scored, over-all, on these criteria: “size of population and territory, resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stability, and competence,” (Waltz 131); yet, as one may sensibly infer from the title, that this highest status in the international arena, as it naturally should, foremost depended on their systemic role in bringing about (more precisely, enforcing) and maintaining world peace. Perspicuously, Britain couldn’t maintain that super-power status for long.

 

Nothing, however, further cemented the status of the United States and Russia (the Soviet Union at the time) as superpowers more than their Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)—the result of strategic nuclear parity—that began to manifest in the 1960s. Paradoxically, MAD simultaneously attests an equality of US-Russian mutual-dependence (a form of interdependence) i.e. in terms of existential security, and negates each’s international interdependence i.e. in absolute terms. For only Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), as the name bears ample indicative connotation, subjugates the United States and Russia to equal reciprocity in response to a nuclear strike from either side, or a surprise attack [consult Thomas C. Schelling’s (1958), “Surprise Attack and Disarmament,”]—that is, a full-scale nuclear war of incalculable destructive force to befall both sides. And, with respect to international interdependence, it [MAD] actually severs the two superpowers off the international body for the relational dimension of MAD is exclusive to them, and them alone. Therefore, the two superpowers move about in another relational dimension (i.e. supra-international) of exclusive interdependence—as an existential vulnerability—wherein multilateralism is rendered altogether inoperable, for the MAD dimension could only fit two units—a bilateral matter per se [emphasis added].   

 

Simply put, Mutually Assured Destruction is the only case where the United States and Russia stand so close to being perfectly equally vulnerable to reciprocity. 

 

[For more on MAD, see §. II, “Conceptualization: The Quasi-inherent ‘Supra-international Balance of Power’ of MAD,” Ch. III. “A Theory of Intelligence in the ‘MAD’ Age,” in my (2019) “U.S.-Russian Exceptionalism: Intelligence, MAD, and Détente,” book on Apple Books]

 

For the truth of the matter is this:

For those who remain incredulous toward the entire notion of super-power, think of the US invasion of Iraq; or, Russia’s total indifference vis-á-vis collective Western sanctions; aren’t these two references sufficient proofs of American and Russian low-international-dependence i.e. low-interdependence? Time and again, the United States and Russia have undertaken political, economic, and military endeavors, those were disproved and passionately remonstrated with by the international community, without any commensurate retaliatory action on the part of any or all other units, neither by systemic powers.

Still have some doubts? 

Consider the sanctions system and its failure to alter Russia’s behavior. Couldn’t, thereon, be said that Russia is a country of low-interdependence level? 

With respect to the United States, all international bodies opposed its invasion of Iraq; Russia included [note: the invasion of Iraq did not mount for an existential vulnerability to Russia; as such, the Russian reaction was limited to its low-international-dependence level and remote geopolitical interests at the international, not the supra-international—particular to Mutually Assured Destruction [MAD], level] found common cause with old Europe, as it formed the coalition of the unwilling with Germany and France (Stent, 2014); yet, America had indeed invaded Iraq. What? Would anyone reasonably suggest that the United States is equally vulnerable or sensitive to systemic reaction, as, let’s say, India?

Insofar the superpower status holds, multilateralism amongst the great-powers of the world would always entail inequality as an inherent feature—as it is intrinsic to the realm of politics, especially international politics—which is irreconcilably in dialectical opposition to the ‘equally-dependent units’ notion of interdependence. Since multilateralism is a modus operandi, fundamentally intended to address collective goods problems, it admits prevalent inequalities amongst participants inasmuch as all of them, in qualitative terms, stand to equally benefit from the outcomes. 

 

Waltz correctly observed that, “To understand the foreign-policy implications of high or of low interdependence requires concentration on the politics of international economics, not on the economics of international politics. The common conception of interdependence omits inequalities, whether economic or political,” (Waltz 142).

 

 

In conclusion, both theoretical and practical omission of inequalities is plausible, economically, on the grounds that all producing participants are susceptible to the same existential hazard wielded by the invisible hand of the market—drawn from the systemic powers of supply and demand. Conversely, no such supreme powers (i.e. similar to those of supply and demand in the economic system) exist to govern the international political system in particular, nor the entire realm of politics for that matter, and subdue all states equally [much emphasis added here] to the aforesaid hazard. Having that said, interdependence must needs be modified to be compatible with the natural laws of the political realm; that is, reduced from absolutism to relativism and proportionality (low-to-high); lest, in being misapplied to international politics—namely, in absolute terms—, it inevitably undermines all multilateral efforts. 

 

 

 

Reference

Fitzgerald, Michael R., and Allen Packwood, Out of the Cold: the Cold War and its Legacy. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., 2013.

Kenneth, Waltz N. Theory of International Politics. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 2010.

Nasif, Alan. U.S.-Russian Exceptionalism: Intelligence, MAD, and Détente. Apple Books, 2019.

Stent, Angela E. The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.