Regional Security Complex Theory

Some thoughts from a veteran of political-science classes of the late 1970s.

We learned of the difference between two foreign-policy  realisms: classical and structural. Classical versus structural. 

Classical realists took the policy maker himself to be the chief object of interest/study. Machiavelli was the font of this approach. James Burnham was a self-conscious adherent. A classical realist won't talk, without qualifications, of a state (a city, in the font's context) as having goals, but will think of the people and factions who hold or are contending for power - a city's Prince or those who would be Prince -- have goals, and their goals become those of ‘the state’ when they achieve positions of command. Those decisions may involve deliberate absorption of the state by a neighbor, or even indifference as to whether the state survives or not. 

Structural realism speaks of states as having goals, determined by their history and systemic features of their decision making. They do seek to survive. Kenneth Waltz spun out this view in a systematic way. His magnum opus was actually published in 1979, around the time I was graduating, so I doubt it was in any of my reading materials, even in that final semester! But I got the gist of it presumably based on earlier formulations. Structural realism was in those days considered a "defensive realism." A state that cones under attack cannot call 911 and expect anyone to pick up. For this simple reason they seek alliances, so the nation under attack WILL have someone it can call! The alliances tend to grow over time, and they tend to define each other in opposition to some opposing alliance. The natural result, in Waltz' view, is a stable bipolarity. 

That was an optimistic realism. At least when Waltz formulated it! The world was in fact bi-polar, and Waltz theory offered some assurance that this could be a lasting equilibrium, that it would not end in radioactive tears (any time soon). 

Since then, a new theory has been developed, still within the "realist" fold, called offensive realism. Like Waltz, the offensive realists treat states as self-aware units, each of which seeks to survive. But it also takes the view that states naturally become suspicious and fearful of one another. This is why (in the view of scholars such as John Mearsheimer and Fareed Zakaria) states so often take the offensive against one another — the aggressor state always sees its aggression as a preemptive strike.

How did the world manage to survive the bi-polar power structure that lasted from the late 1940s until the late 1980s without civilization-ending disaster, if this pessimistic view is accurate? Perhaps given the level of non-nuclear but intense surrogate fighting during the period -- not civilization ending but plenty catastrophic if you were there, we shouldn't necessarily count that period as evidence of stable or sustainable equilibrium. And perhaps, to the extent that we were lucky, we should not "count on it" hereafter.  

A somewhat more optimistic view of foreign relations than offensive realism is 'regional security complex theory,' as formulated by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever of Copenhagen. RSCT — which may be considered a form of realism too. It contends that states tend to develop stable relations at least within a specific geographically defined region. As for example Europe, or the Americas. But security considerations don’t travel well - relations between regions are a good deal trickier than relations within a region and are going to stay that way. Technology notwithstanding, the call to some alliance 911 is more likely to get action if it is a local call.

Indeed, RSCT helps us understand the significance of places such as Afghanistan, which fall outside any of the great regional complexes. 

That doesn't make them buffer zones, It makes them war magnets. Okay, so it is not an optimistic view for everybody.