“The establishment of universal order of peace and security is impossible with nations’ inherent right of self-defence. This is because the inherent right of self-defence by necessity demands the accumulation and augmentation of preponderant military power which in turn makes the international anarchic system a state of war that is largely to blame for onset of wars due to the absence of a universal government in the international system. Therefore, to make the establishment of universal order of peace and security possible, nations’ inherent right of self-defence must be withdrawn and transferred to a universal government who will preserve the universal order of peace and security of all the nations of the world as to make it unnecessary for nations to accumulate military power”
The following discussion of “the anarchy of the international system and war” covers various angles with the structure of discussion organized around the premises that in the absence of a world government commanding a centralized monopoly of military power to deter, prevent and make war impossible in the international system, the onset of war is largely blamed on the anarchy of the system. This conclusion is arrived at through the correction of the shortcomings of systemic theories and from which the nature of states emerges after those corrections. This enabled the building of the theoretical system explaining the dynamics of anarchical international political phenomenon and the onset of war within the international system. The work ends with an analysis of the method of global governance in relations to the onset of war within international anarchy which are examined for their strength to prevent war in the system.
“It is when nations have surrendered to a higher authority the means of destruction which modern technology have put in their hands-When they have given up their sovereignty-that international peace can be made secure as domestic peace”[1].
Politics among nations takes place in a state of nature which is a state of war[2]. Nations then are in a condition of war, not in the sense of constant fighting among themselves, but in the sense that they have a known disposition to fight from time to time in the absence of a common power to keep them in awe[3]. War is therefore inherent in the condition of states[4]. The anarchic state of nature exhibits the condition of state of war because military power is not centralized under a world government, but rather, is controlled by each nation in the international system. Making decisions on who is friend or foe within the system is governed by the law of who has the greatest and most threatening military power capabilities. As such, states cannot subscribe to the notion that international anarchy is what they make of it in the sense that they have the choice and latitude to view other states as friends rather than enemies within international anarchy[5]. International anarchy then, is not what states make of it, but rather what military capability possessed by all nations makes it, and that is a state of the constant possibility of the onset of war within anarchy. And in which friends or foes are determined or measured by relative capabilities as certainties of intention of those who control them can never exist in international anarchic state of nature in which states may at any time use them (Mearsheimer 2000, Waltz 1979, Doyle 1997).
This is the condition in which states live in the absence of a world government commanding a centralized monopoly of military power to prevent and make war impossible among the nations of the international system. Making the onset of war largely to be blamed on the inherent anarchy of that international system due to that lack of a world government. World government in the international system means the Weberian notion of government that implies a universal authority with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force[6]. Second, coupled with the monopoly of force, world government also denotes the existence of institutions and laws that can both be directed toward the maintenance of international order[7]. Lack of world government, in summary, means the absence of centralized global military power, legislature to make laws, a judiciary to enforce the laws, and an executive for the administration of the laws[8]. This is the order of government existing within states for the maintenance of peace and security, for national society owe their peace, security, and order to the existence of a government endowed with supreme power within each national territory[9].
With the peace, security, and order existing within states due to the presence of government, it can be concluded that onset of war among states will be impossible, and peace, security, and order would be made secure if the international system have a world government comprising all the nations of the world[10]. For within nations, peace among social groups is maintained based on dual foundations of the disinclination of the collectivity of society to break the peace, and their inability to do so even when they are so inclined to break the peace and order of the nation[11]. The individuals and groups are unable to break the peace because overwhelming monopoly of organized violence makes any such attempt a hopeless undertaking[12]. Overwhelming monopoly of force preserves peace within nations, the absence of such power in the international system evokes the onset of wars given its anarchic nature[13]. …
In the absence of a world-wide government with overwhelming power in the international system, the following makes war inherent in the anarchic system. First, humans have in their nature a natural disposition toward violence and the desire for power after power[14]. Within societies, human individuals, and the groups they form natural dispositions toward violence is curtailed by law and its enforcement. Individuals and social groups are kept apart with the force of law resting on overwhelming monopoly of force, and it stands ready to take the side of victims of violence, at least in the mature democratic states. In the international system there is no world government to keep states apart and to prevent their resort to violence whenever they calculate they can use it and get away with it. Their deterrence and punishment can only be done by superior countervailing power of other nations. The international realm then is a realm where anything goes up to the stopping power of another nation. Foreign policy is the work of human beings, and as such, it logically follows that acts of states as a personality in international politics are the projection of human natural disposition toward violence and desire for power through the nation into the international realm[15]. And that natural disposition of nations toward violence that has roots in human nature makes nations acquire military capabilities which are viewed as necessary possession to support those dispositions of using force of violence in the life of the state whose health and strength must be toughened by those military capabilities, and beyond measure in nations’ competition for material possession, as an instrument for self-help in the international environment of fear and mistrust, suspicion and uncertainties of intentions of other military powers who all have the same dispositions (Bull 1981, Meinecke 1998). For the defense and security of their nations, and for use in the quest for glory of leadership[16]. Military power is therefore controlled by each nation because they deem it necessary to fight once war appears the lesser of two evils or when the benefit of war outweighs the costs[17].
Any systemic theory that does not incorporate human nature, and by extension, nations’ natural disposition toward violence is incomplete and cannot completely explain why war is inherent in the anarchic system. All systemic theories like those of Kenneth Waltz (1979), Robert Jervis (2014), John Mearsheimer (2000) sees national units’ foreign policy as falling outside the purview of systemic theory, and those authors’ systemic theories’ view nation-state foreign policy a reaction against the enabling and constraining character of the anarchic structure of the international system. And the onset of war is then explained by that anarchic structure alone as a characteristic that permits war to occur, and this is because there is no world government to come to rescue. Those mentioned authors’ theoretical systems are all top-down explanation, from the macro (systemic) to the Micro (national units)[18]. However, the correct explanation of war is the other way round in a linear process, from the micro to the macro. It is not the system and its structure determining states’ behavior and their foreign policy choices as those theorists posits. Rather, it is states’ conduct and their foreign policy choices and pursuits determining the character exhibited by the structure and the system. Character which then becomes a state of war in which the onset of war is inevitable.
It is the violent disposition of states that have their roots in human nature that makes international anarchy a state of war that is permissive of onsets of war because there is no juxtaposed world government against those dispositions. Without the human nature and the nature of nations’ factors, the greatest degree of military power controlled by each nation under anarchy will not lead to onset of war as those military capabilities will not only be used, but they will also be useless to acquire and maximize as there would be no threat or need for them. International anarchy would be a peaceful arrangement. Weapons are in their nature neither aggressive nor defensive, they are made so according to the purpose they serve[19]. It is the intention of the use of a sword, a tank or a machine gun that makes them instrument of defense or attack[20]. Mearsheimer (2000) came almost close to the truth than the other theorists when he posited that nations fear one another and that their intentions are uncertain. This proposition was, however, not developed into a tested hypothesis as to why nations fear each other and why their intentions cannot be predicted. To ascertain the presence of fear and uncertainties and the onset of war in an anarchic international system, it is necessary and required to bring into theoretical systems the human natural drive that is brought to the development, design, implementation, decision-making, and choices of foreign policy.
Second, given nations’ dispositions to the use of force, the uncertain and unpredictable intention surrounding their military capabilities, and the absence of a world government to rely on for security, state become security or power maximizers with the balance struck on the choices between security or power maximization based on cost and benefit calculations of which of the two choices carries the greatest risks[21]. The implication of defensive security power maximization struggle is that it locks states into security dilemma which means a zero-sum environment in which military power capabilities of each nation threaten the security of all others as there is no certainty of intentions whether the military capabilities serve only the purpose of defense or whether they would be offensively used[22]. The security dilemma in turn sparks off arms racing in which each state tries to augment capabilities for the worst-case scenarios in a vicious circle in which all states become insecure from the capabilities of all others[23]. With the disposition of nations to use force leading to security or power maximization struggle that locks states into the security dilemma, that dilemma propensity in turn leads to an automatic or consciously designed balance of international power of states’ military capabilities in which each fear the shifting of that balance against their favor as security dilemma is transformed from juxtaposition between two individual nations to larger and sometimes world-wide balance of power by cross-cutting military alliances. Further, that balance of power is impossible of attaining a vanishing point at which there is an equilibrium that makes the onset of war impossible within international anarchy because the scales are in a constant rise and fall in the perpetual struggle to augment power by states[24]. Although there is a continuing debate as to which of the balance of power systems, bipolar, tripolar, or multipolar power balance, has a greater propensity toward war[25]. In that relentless military power preponderance struggle that constantly lowers or raises the scales of power, states are forced to react before a countervailing or opposing force shifts the scale and gets the upper hand[26]. With the result that the onset of war is likely in the anarchic system, as for example, was the case in World War 1 in which the balance of power between the Triple alliance and the Triple Entente collided in war[27].
These above first and second cluster of variables bring international anarchic political struggle down to the following mechanical calculative equations why the anarchy of the international system is largely to blame for the onset of war. The natural dispositions of nations to use force, and the phenomenal dynamics of fear, mistrust, suspicion, uncertainty of intentions of military power, the security or power maximization struggle and the security dilemma inherent in that struggle, and the disequilibrating character of the balance of power in that same struggle, combined with the decentralized national control of military power, all minus, a universal government with a monopoly of overwhelming military power to establish order in the dynamics of those phenomenon. Equal to the sum of individual nations and their alliances struggle to augment their military power and to reduce the power of the other with war if necessary. By doing to others what they don’t want done unto them before the others get to the position to do the same unto them[28]. And with all the strength of the military capabilities that can be mustered. And whose ultima ratio for possession and control is war if all else fails[29].
In that anarchic system in which war is inherent, the methods of global governance such as hegemonic stability theory[30]. The cooperation facilitation role of international organizations[31]. The promotion of commercial liberalism to achieve interdependence to make war less likely[32]. The effort to move states practice away from the balance of power practices toward international relations based on the rule of international law and the principle of collective security[33]. Does not and cannot change the enduring character of international anarchy as a system that will always inevitably lead to the onset of war. A hegemon as the most powerful state in the international order is seen by some as an institution that can maintain a stable global order, prevent war, and enforce the rules of the international system[34]. However, a hegemon will not itself be benign across history given nations disposition to fight wars, and the maintenance of a global order is an impossible task for any hegemon no matter how powerful because of the possession and control of military power by all other nations most of which are at the heels of the hegemon to catch up with it and overtake its military power preponderance. A hegemon can only act where and when its interests are at stake, and does or will not commit its resources, natural, economic, human capital, to make war impossible under anarchy for to do so will cause it to overstretch and fall[35]. International organizations cannot prevent the onset of war inherent in the military power struggle of the great powers who cannot let their military strategy be determined by any international organizational cooperative mechanism in an anarchic environment in which states see military power and the control over strategy as the most prudent than the reliance on international organization who is not affected by nations dispositions to use force. The use of economic gains from interdependence fostering commercial liberalism by nations to augment and pursue military power with every rise in their GDP exacerbates the security dilemma and its implications for the onset of war within anarchy. And military power capabilities and their pursuit is not amenable to legal reasoning and prohibition if the international rule of law is based on prohibition and legal reasoning that will leave a nation less military powerful for its security. When these situations arise, international law is set aside.
Collective security rests on the theory that the collective system will always be able to Munster such overwhelming military power against any potential aggressor or a coalition of them that the aggressor(s) would not dare challenge the order defended by the collective security system[36]. Within international anarchy of decentralized military power, it is perceivable that a collective security system will involve many nations in war, for generally, there will be the aggressor and its sympathizers confronting the collective security system, for, it is extremely unlikely that only a single nation would be found in the position of the aggressor[37].The reduction in international war since 1945 is not because the international anarchy of the international system has lost its ‘inherent war within’ as an enduring character because of those methods of global governance, but rather, the reduction in war is because of the self-imposed governments’ restraint on the use of war to avoid the cataclysmic destruction that the use of nuclear weapons will unleash. However, the incremental increases of the military power of the great global powers since the end of the second World War in 1945 continues to slowly chip away at that restraint as fear of each other’s military power gets them more locked into the security dilemma in which the balance of power continues its shifts. This has already led to discussions and debates supporting preemptory and preventive war in cases of perceived or imminent attack[38]. Preemptory and preventive wars which the anarchy of the international system will inevitably produce.
In conclusion therefore, with all the preceding discussion, the inherent anarchy of the international system is largely to blame for the onset of war, and the solution to it can only be found in the ‘heart’ of the dynamics of international politics, and that ‘heart’ is ‘military power’ as driving the moving parallelogram that is anarchic world politics. The bodies being nation-states. It is the beating of their ‘hearts’ ‘military power’ that must and that demands stabilization into a settled balanced equilibrium in global politics and such equilibrium can only be brought about through a universal order of universal government with a centralized monopoly of military power. This will make it possible to withdraw and abolish article 51 of the inherent right of self-defence with war and the possession of military power by nations for that purpose from that order of universal government who would preserve all the nations’ peace and security.
