2

Part 1: the Use of Force

from using theirs. No other political, or is
Robert Jervis and Kenneth Jervis asserts
of nuclear weapons on politics are powerful and pervasive,
and nuclear a force for peace, making not only
nuclear but also conventional wars less likely between
protection.
1
The Fungibility
of Force
ROBERT J. ART
FORCE AND ANARCHY
In anarchy, force is integral to foreign policy because military power can be
wielded not only forcefully but also The forceful use of military
power is physical: a cripples, or destroys the possessions of another
stat,e. The peacefuJ use of power is intimidating: a 8tate
cripple, or but actually do 80. To use power forcefully
18 to wage to use 1t is to when diplomacy ha8
failed is waged. Mainly hope that be
usually made. For any given state, war is the exception, not the rule, in its
relations with other because most of the time a given at peace,
not war. Consequently, states military power more frequently in the
peaceful forceful mode
When used forcefully, the of power are to identify. A
state unleashes its military forces, and it either objectives or fails to.
The adversary is defeated and coerced; victorious and unbowed; or
the battle is fought to a draw. Used in force is a blunt instrument, but it can
achieve decisive results if wielded When used
their military power in more subtle, and therefore in less well-defined ways. Used
power is held ready, and its exact influence on politica1
outcomes becomes more to trace. The use of power
is akin to a powerful flood: it washes away all before it. The use of mil-
power is ak:in to a large object8 in space: it affects
all motion place, but it produces its effects imperceptibly. The
3
4
Robert J. Art
of dramatic and easy to pinpoint; those of gravity seem more mundane
and are harder to discern. A f100d demonstrates 1ts by its presence; a grav-
field, by its of the effect of military power looks
of
not be equated sitnply physical use. Short of waging war or playing
chicken in a power shapes by its peacetime
by its forceful (0 focus only physical use of mil
power is to miss most of what most states do most time
power at their disposal
Tbe peaceful use of may be less decisive than its wartime use,
does not peacetime insignificant.
peaceful use of military power explains why it remains central to statecrafi
Lurking behind the scenes, unstated but military
gives meaning posturing of the diplomats. Especially for great but
for the lesser ones, too, military power other instruments of state-
crafi. Diplomacy is the striking of compromises by with differing perspec-
tives and clashing interests. many go into the fashioning of
diplomatic but central to each is the consequences of fail-
ure. Fear of failure, combined with the force used if
agreement is not reached, help produce It is the ultimate ability of
each its military diplomats.
to use force plays the sarne role in bargaining among natlOns
to strike plays in labor-management of
a destructive war or a prolonged strike represents a
down that the would prefer to avoid. The breakdown,
desire to avoid it, work to it. Environments where nothing
prevent breakdowns from the will of the par.
are called permissive realms. In such fear of failure an
essential ingredient for
In permissive realms of breakdown need not be made explicit, but
can be left implicit and still be to use force (or to strike)
not be articulated all parties understand that it is an integraI part of the
situation. Tbe threat cannot be disowned Tbe right to strike
of collective right of every state to resort to force is
parcel of international politics.
In permissive realms, often more effective if left
imolicit. When one makes an 1t the pressure
to follow suit. Threat spawns
so on. Voluntary
stymied escalatory process because threats stiffen the
harden their Implicit on the other hand, have a bet1er chance of
avoiding the escalatory can more easily produce agreement, but
only desire of both breakdown is strong. Whether explicit
THE OF FORCE
5
or implicit, threats remain an integral feature of statecraft, and it is these threats
that gravitational effect of military in tum to the
other instruments of more "punch" would have. In
short, in a permissive like anarchy, where force bol-
sters diplomacy
is to a political frarnework what a political framework is
to a but sufficient for
fiructioning. An efficient marke! depends expectation by its participants
rules goveming their economic interactions will be is
the political frarnework in which that provides these rnles. Without
such a frarnework, markets firuction poorly. If, for exarnple, seizure of assets is
arbitrary aud private investrnent will be discouraged. If a state can alter
the prices of goods at will, be skewed. If no punishment
for stock -market either fraud will become or would-be
ers of stock will need to hire their own stock-fraud To function well.
free markets must be embedded in a that
rnles for stable economic exchanges. As the British historian E. H. put lt:
science of economics presupposes a given political order, and cannot be
studied in isolation from politics."
Similarly, the study of politics cannot studied in isolation from
coercion. Political domestic or intemational, cannot exist apart from it
group cau get its way through the use of public
order will break down, might will make mafiosos will replace
will ensue drawn, power
uneasy peaces ensue. When the coercive power of govemment breaks
down, force becomes privatized. When force is privately held, it creates gang-
sterism; when publicly held, it government. It is a state's legitimate
monopo1y use of force that creates the bedrock for a stab1e
domestic political order.
the plays in affairs
us to understand why it larger role in a realm like inter-
national politics. If force is an important element in politics within
it must be more so for politics among nations. When clash domes
tically, mat1ers usual1y do not get out of hand, because all sides
ultimate discipline of forceful coercion by the state. When interests clash
internationally, reasonableness, persuasion, and logic much less weight
they do domestically, because there is no centra1 government standing in the
background to euforce them. Instead, separate states, each of which pos
ltS own coercive in International poli
gangsterism, but it resembles it in at least one respect: all states have
the need to be privately armed because there is no legitimate, public coercive
them. As Kenneth Waltz aptly put it In IS
bedxe liltma mU0.Inmtermuonalpoliucs force serves, not only nltima
6

ratio, but indeed first and one." In domestic politics force has been
sub]ccted to centraIgovemmentd conIZO1, mInternatIonal poHUCSIt has not
Consequently, statesm anarchy cannot d1spense wuh somethmg that even
national cannot do without. .
POWER ASSETS: COMPARISONS AND CONFUSIONS
So far, 1 have force is integraI to statecmhbecause mternauonal po1
itics i8 anarchic. By factmakes force furlEIblc to a degec:Exactly how

questions. 1 a rough the of the main

it
Comparing Power
statecraft accord>ng to their a dif-
ficult task. We do not have a body of empirical studies that systematically
ana1yze the comparative fungibi1ity of a state's The few
done, focus on only one or two instru-
more concerned with looking at issue areas
areas. As a
cient evidence to power assets according fimgibility. Through a
little logic, however, we some
Consider what power assets a owns. They include: popu1ation-the size,
education 1eve1, and sk:ills of geography-the
ural resource endowment effectiveness of
a and stands for, the
of to level, and
sk:ill and


because m of e and
l
which the other values and high1y
able, dependiug, content of the values and 00 the education
and sk:ill of the power, somewhere between
skill, one hand, and geography and on the other hand, but
closer 1atter. In rank order, most fungib1e power
to be politica1 sk:ill, and power.
Economic wealth has the It easiest to convert into
assctofaIL can be used to buy
oFFoRCE 7
many different things-such as a good press, top-flight international negotiators,
smart 1awyers, cutting-edge techno10gy, power in intemational orga-
and so on. also power. A rich
mi1itary poor one. A is 1arge and rich can, if it
so chooses, generate especial1y 1arge military power. The old mer-
canti1ist insight that power (and vice versa) is still
Po1itical sk:ill is a second fuugib1e. By definition,
sk:illed ones who can operate well in different po1icy
realms have mastered the techniques of persuasion and iufluence.
equal1y adept at selliug wars, or foreign aid to
their citizens. Po1itical1y sk:i1lfu1 statesmen can with ease different
po1icy realms. Indeed, that is what we common1y mean by a po1itical1y sk:illfu1
1eader--<)ne who can 1ead in many different wealth and skil1
are are easi1y transferab1e from one po1icy realm to another
two most 1iquid
Military power is a third It is not as fungib1e as skil1,
does not make it i1liquid. Military power possesses versati1ity because
force is integra1 to politics, even when at peace. If force is to
politics, it must be fungib1e. It have pervasive and yet
be severe1y restricted in its Its pervasive however, can be uni
fornt1y strong, unifornt1y weak, or variab1e in strength. Which is the case depends
on how military power affects the many domains, po1icy arenas, and
come minimum, however, military power is
fungib1e to a degree because its use, use, or sirup1y its
mere preseoce political calcu1ations of
of mi1itary power influence per-
vades the other policy rea1ms, even if it is not dominant in most of them. Perva-
siveness implies fungibility
of nti1itary power, greater it its fun
gibi1ity. Up to a reasonab1e poiut, more of better
desirab1e to be mi1itari1y powerful than nti1itari1y
have in world weak ones. Mi1itari1y strong
weak ones. Mi1-
better to or more seriously
in order to can militarily weak ones
Final1y, are more weak
to be 1ess subject to the will of others, to be in a stronger position
to protection in a world where others are
insecure--these are political can be dip10matically exp10ited, and
will, reso1ve, and bargaining
Thus, although power ranks behind wealth and skill in terms of
it can be a two, at 1east for those
that to exp10it it
8
Robert J. Art
Conllating Sufficiency and
view argued here-that military power possesses a
fungibility s
view is that put forward by David Bo1dwin, who power is of
restricted Bo1dwin asserts
weaknesses about intemational politics
have tendency to effectiveness of
tendency to treat military P?wer rod to which forms of
power should be compared. L.
view power follows from his more genero1 argument that
Dower assets tend to be situationally functions
as a in one framework may be irrelevant in
another." If situationo1ly or domain they are not easily
from one policy reo1m to In fact, as Bo1dwin
ical power . . . tend to be mllch less liquid resources";
and o1though power their of fimgibility,no politico1
beFIls to approach the dqree of fmgh1tlty of money" E
For two consequences flow from the nature ot
power resources. First, we cannot rely on a gross ofa overo11
power assetsm order to4etCHIme how well H W1ll dommy speciftarea-
Instead, we must it wields
domain. Second, the low of
what of unrea1ized power": the fact a

he tells us, is state at issue has assets domain where it
and weak ones does not
On the face of Bo1dwin's argllment is reasonable. It sense
to argue, for armies are better at than at
exchange o1so makes good sense to
we assess what assets a state can bring
a specific our feel wi1l be of what the
uc hI y accompl on issue. To aredomain
absurd. Eqllo1ly absurd, however, 011
domain specific that a gross inventory of a
overall power not a even if on1y a rough, guide to how
well the to do given domain. not equo1
and fine-tuning does not mean o1tering assessmellts
Wbat does mean for the fllngibility of military power? Shon1d we
accept view about it? 1 we shon1d not. To see why, let us
look in greater at what else he has to say.
T!IE FORCE
9
Bo1dwin adduces four that purport to limited ver
satility of military power.
3
The examples are nonetheless
to ano1yze because they are eqllivo1ent to thought

Possession of nuclear weapons is not just to securing the election
of a U.S. citizen as UN it is a hindrance
owner of a political power resource, such to deter atomic
attack, is likely to have difficulty converting this resource into another
resource that would, for to become the leader of
the Third World
Planes loaded with nllclear weapons may a state' s ability to deter
nuclear attacks but may be 1ryelevant to rescumg the Pueblo [a u s.destroyer
seized by the North in early 1968] on short
The ability to get other countries to refrain from attacking one's homeland is
ability to win the hearts and the people" in a
faraway land [the reference is to the War]4
persuasive at first glance, the examples are, in fact, highly mis
A IIttle reEEUon about each wdl show how Baldwm has cozzm IHed the
cardinal error of insufficiency of an instrument fllngi
alld, therefore, how he has made military more domain
in each example than it reo1ly is
Consider United Nations Throughout the United
States never SOllght, nor did it the election of an
If it had, money and bribes would have been of as little use as a
The Soviet Union would have
would have vetoed a Soviet national as Neither have
of a or from one of its client
is clear: the Cold War United Nations between East
West, and was willing to al10w the other to undue
infIuence institution could it_ because neither
would have ever agreed on a-national othercamp, sought
ranks of the nations.
why Cold War came uno1igned Scandinavian or
Worid nations (Dag frorn Burma. for exam-
ple), particlarly duting the heyday of the Cold arrangement, moreover,
both
NatIons could be helpfU1, UN mediatIon wasmade more effect1ve
because it had a who was not o1igned.
Finally, even
should not conclude thatu has nothing to do w1th AmencaI
10
Robert J.
the
has been So, too, from position as the
world'g strongest nation, a position deriving from both it8 economic and
nuc1ear cannot buy elections,
great power brings great influence in an international one
ofwhose purposes, after all, is to achieve collective security through the
or use of force.
The World example is equally misleading. To see why, let us perform a
simple experiment." a Third World leader who had anned his
might not rise automatically top of the Third
World Dack, he or she would become a mighty important actor
dhow and Jndia, nuclear weapons, would be
viewed if they did not think of how or Libya, which
do not would be viewed did. For the fonner set of states,
nuclear weapoDs add global political for the latter set, their mere
acquire them have caused their prominence to rise considerably. By
themselves, nuclear weapons cannot buy the top slot, Third World or else-
where. Neither economic nor military power, nor any other
alone, top slot is reserved for the the
in all the key categories of power. Although they do not top position,
nuclear weapons nevertheless do significantly enhance the international inHuence
of any if influence i8 measured by how seriously a
is taken by Baldwin i8
nuclear weapons are not readily convertible into another instrumental asset.
point is add
all the a mustered-political influence
The Pueblo is the most complex cases, and the when
that strongest support for Baldwin's
Even when reexamined, this strong case far short of mil-
itary power has little fungibility.
facts Pueblo case are 1968,
Korea U.S.S. Pueblo, an intelligence with sophis-
ticated eavesdropping capabilities was listening in on
Korea. and did not ship's crew members until 22 December 1968,
almost a they had been captured. ship
patrolling inside its twelve-mile waters United denied
claim because its radio Pueblo it was patrolling
teen and a half nautical miles nearest land point. Irnme-
United States beefed up and nuclear
forces in East Asia, sending Navy and Air Force 350
tional aircraft to South Korea, as carrier U.S.S.
prise and its task force within a few minutes' fiying time ofWonsan,
Some of the aircraft sent to bases and those Enterprise were

THE FuNGmILITY OF FORCE

11
nuclear capable. According to President Johnson, several military options were
considered but ultimately
mining Wonsan harbor; nning interdicting
a North Korean selected North Korean targets and navaI gun-
In each case we the risk possible accomplishment
100 to and lose the sale," 1 consistently warned my
advisers.
5
The American government's its military measures, and its subsequent
diplomatic efforts, were to no avail. North Korea refused to release the crew. Jn
fact, right from the of the made clear
that only an American confession that it had spied on N orth Korea and had
intruded into its territorial waters would crew's release. For eleven
months the United to insist that the Pueblo engaged in
illegal activity, it had violated on22
December, when General Gi1bert nego-
tiations, sig as in which the U.S.
did North Korea release The American admis
sion of guilt, however, under protest: immediately before sigrring the
government disavowed what it to sign; and
govennnent disavowed what it had just
Although the facts of the Pueblo
to be put is no1. TIris much is clear: nuclear weapons, nor any of
America's other military assets, have secured the crew's release.
Equally clear, none of its the release
conclude military power, diplomacy,
and whatever employed to crew's release have low
would be a foolish conclusion to draw. There was only
secured the release: the public humiliation of the United
States. If nothing but hnmiliation worked, it is reasonable to humil
iation quickly North Korea's goal.
adversary is finuly fixed on humiliation, posturing, economic
pressure, economic other tool used in moderation is not
likely to succeed. Only measures, such as waging economic
likely to be successful. At that costs of such actions must
be weighed the benefts. One clear lesson we from the Pueblo
case is that sometimes tasks for which none traditional tools of
suffcient. rare, but they do on occasion occur.
The Pueblo was one of them
There is, however, a second and point to be drawn
example. Although it that America' s military power did not
nevertheless, there to undertake the military
12
Robert J.
bulldop fheumtcd States subsequently Neither the United States nor
South Korea knew why the seized the PMbloe besident Johnson and
his advisors, however, to the Tet
in aftrthepuebL0,s
pueblo'S SCIZUYCWas dehberately tlmed to United States and to


Park United States feared these two incidents, and perhaps
ers to come, North Korea American from
to Korea and to make the South Koreans
would bring their two divisions back home
The problems
to get 1tS ship back; how to from engaging in
nrovocahve and how to reassure the South Koreans
keep their troopS in
not first, were purpos sub
ican in East all, the did not need addi
to to crew. There
were 100,000 in East
kowever, would be a useful s1Enalfor deterrence of hrther provocations and
if) North archives
not blow whetber deterrence of furtheEProvocauon wozkex1, because we do not
know what additioual What we do know is that the reas
surance funcuon of the buildup d14work South Korea keptus divlsmnsm

wrong to draw dle conclusiondIat the Pueblo casc force has
little even though military postnring not to have

Baldwin'sanalexample1s equaly problemauc is to

m a dISIant lmd Presumably, however, the exarnple is to
the latter task is not merely different but also 1f
is the asscdmtHIs unexceptIonable
change its behavior been an more
ring a EEven govenment fkom attacking oncIhomeland.Not

1S than interstate The ability
force the adversaries in a civil lay down their arms and negotiate an end to
dispute is a notoriously Chinese civil war 1940s
THE FuNGIBILITY OF FORCE 13
civil 1960s, Bosnian civil the 1990s all
show. task in a situation like
where the outside power's intemal ally faces an has the force of
nationa1ism on its side. (Ho Chi was greatest nationalist fgure of
twentieth was widely recognized as such Vietnarn.) It is
hard to in a civil the adversary monopolizes the appeal of
nationalism. Equally important, however, it is hard to prevail in a civil
out to force United States could not have by force
alone, but it would have had no chance to win without it
No thoughtful analyst of military therefore disagree
fol1owing can be teased out of the fourth (1)
power works better for defense than for (2) military power alone can
not guarantee pacification once has taken (3) military power
alone is not suffcient to compel a to legitimacy of its
(4) compel1ence is more rea
sonable is, however, also that should be drawn
exarnple: (5) when an outside power arrays itself in a civil wrong side
of nationalism, not only will force be insufficient to but too, will
all the other tools of statecraft-money, political skil1, so on. In
such cases power suffers from the as the other
makes it no more, but no less, fungible
All Baldwin's demonstrate an important fact about military
power: used alone, it achieve many things. an
point to remember, but is it is peculiar to military power alone or that
it has little fungihility? Surely not. lndeed, no single of
statecraft is ever sufficient to attain any objective-a
fact 1 shall two reasons states-
counteractions that will be undertaken by the states he is
trying to inftuence. They will attempt to counter his stratagems oftheir
own; they will use different types of to the is using;
aud they will attempt to compensate for their weakness in one area with their
A influence attempt therefore requires a
approach to deal likel y counters to it.
policy itself has facets. A multifaceted policy by necessity
it. For both reasons, important matters
require a statesman to muster several, if not all, the disposal,
even though he may rely more heavily on others. In sum, in state
tool alone
For military power, then, as for the other statecraft, fungibility
should not be equated with should not be equated
with low fungibility. A given instrument can a of the way to a
gven goal, even though it cannot the state all the way there. At one and the
tIme, an illStrument of statecraft to attaining many
14
Robert J. Art



by to
HOW FORCE ACHlEVES FUNGffiILITY
If mihtary power1s a vcrsatile insmIment of then exactly how does it
achieve its fungibi1ity? What paths through which it can influence


each examp1es.
SpiJl-Over
OF FORCE 15
A spill-over effect can be understood as a prerequisite or a by-product
the resu1t produced by the act of force checking force creates
is deliberate and viewed as essential in order to reach a given out
in another domain. As a by-product, the encounter produces something in
another domain that be beneficial but is incidenta1 or even unintended. Of
course, what is by-product and what is on what outcomes are
valued in that other domain. Two examp1es will illustrate how the spill-over
effect works and how it manifests itse1f as a prerequisite or a by-product
Examples: Banking and Cold War Interdependence
The first examp1e has to do with banks; the second, with history. The
banking examp1e demonstrates the ro1e force plays in solvency; the historical
the U.S. military power played in economic
interdependence
Begin why do we deposit
money in a bank? The answer is: we put our money in a bank because we think
we it out whenever we want. We money is there when we
it. In short, we believe the bank to be solvent
Solvency is usually thought of solely in economic terms: a bank is solvent
because it has enough assets to meet its liabilities if they are called.7 Sol-
vency, however, is a function, not simply of finances, but of physicaI safety. A
bank's solvency depends on the fact both that its
balance sheet black) and that its physically (not easily
stolen). Physical security is therefore as important to a solvency
even though we generally take the former for granted when we a
stable domestic order. If the banks within a be robbed at wiII, then its
citizens would not put their money in them. A state makes banks physically
by power to deter and defend against would-be robbers
to compel them to give back the funds if a place
are caught and the fnnds Through its use of its legitimate monopoly
on the use of force, a state seeks to the threat of forcible seiznre.
in estabIishing the physical of it produces one
of the two required for a bank's solvency.
In in a weIl-ordered state, public force suppresses private force. The
effect suppression is to generalized stability that context
within which all societal interactions take place. This spills over into
numerous one of which is con
fidence about the physical of confidence can be viewed as a
by-product of the public suppression of private as a
solvency, or, more sensibly, as both
A good historical example of the spiIl-over effect of military power
economic interdependence produced among the free during
16
Robert J. Art
l'3---pfdLLVd

OF FORCE 17
would have the political will to rebuild themselves economically. The initial pur.
pose of NATO is the key to its (and to the United States-Japan defense treaty)
function: of a politically stable island amidst a turbu
lent international sea
Second, America's provision of security to its allies in Europe and
East dampened their respective concems about German and Japanese military
rearmament. The United States 's protected not only from the
Soviets, but also from the Germans and the J apanese. Because
Japanese military power was contained in the United States domi-
nated, and because were visibly and
within each Japan's did not forget
the horrors they suffered at the hands of these two during the Second World
nevertheless, were not from cooperating The success
European Common Market owes as much to the presence of
continent of Europe as it does to the vision of men like Monnet. The
can be said for the Far East. America's military presence has helped oil the
for Japan 's economic dominance there
Third, America's helped about dispar
ities in relative economic about vulnerabilities inherent in interde-
pendence, which are heightened in an open economic order. Freer trade
benefits all nations, but not equally. The most efficient
nomic efficiencies can be tumed to effect. Interdependence brings depen-
the more states economically. Unequal
from trade dependencies all too often historically have had adverse
Through its provision of military protection to its
United States mitigated the security extemalities of interdependence
and enabled the Germans and the Japanese to bring their neighbors (America's
allies) orbits without those neighbors or
J apanese military or political domination would follow. secu-
rity issue dealt economic of the Germans and J apanese
was easier for their neighbors to swallow,
Finall y, America' s military presence fostered a solidatity that by virtue
of being a comrnon enemy. That sense of
helped determination and the good will necessary to Qvercome the
inevitable economic disputes that interdependencies bring. The spill-over"
effects of military cooperation against the Soviets political wi11 to
economic openness should not be underestimated, are difficult to
Surely, sense of good will that
alliance in a common cause bred must have had these spiIl-over Finally,
need to preserve a united front common enemy put lirnits on how
allies, and the United States, would permit their economic disputes to go
The need to maintain a united front bounded the inevitable eco
lnlic disputes and prevented escalating into a downward-spiraling
18

economic
of concems about relati ve
dependmues, and the sense Of SOManty-aIIOf these were a1dcd
can military Europe and the Far East
Linkage Politics
second way force exerts other domains of


priced in funcdonaI t1e between exchanEemtesmd
cannot be delinked. as the oil-dollar example functional



:
two linked because a made a
none but

a link io order to on a given

to do somethmg undesirable in the or by promising to do


a for
exercise of . . . [B]ecause con
THE FuNomlLITY OF FORCE 19
nected, domains be wholly delinked from one another. If they be
we should not view them in isolation from
explanation of an outcome in a given is based only on what goes
on will always be iocomplete, if not doworight wrong. In sum,
issue linkages power of a
linkages in particular make assets more they
might otherwise be, Linkage politics is a fact of intemational politicallife. We
should not expect to make the best deals they can
by compensating for weakness in strength io others. states
can better engage in these can weak ones.
are weak; uti-
1ize their leverage in the to make up deficit weak: ones
also better able to shift order to
build positions of when necessary. They can, for exarople,
more easily generate power when they need to in order to link it to non-
because powerrul states can link issues ffiore
can weaker ones, can compensate for deficiencies better, can generate rnore
resources and do so more quickly when needed, and can
greater ease, how a state is overall detenninant to
how successful it is of how weak it may be
gIven moment issue linkage pol-
itics enhances the advantages of being powerful and boosts the fungibility of
force by enabling it to cross domains.
Petrodollars, and Oil Prices
Three . . . brief examples show the of state served
by constructing such
The first involves the relation between and continuing bal-
deficits alliance system. Tbroughout most of the
Cold War United States large balance-of-payments deficits
Historically, no nation has been able to buy more abroad than it sells abroad
(import exports) in as huge a volnme and for as long a period as
United There why it was able to,
liquidity that dollars provided, which enabled to gen-
eral American economy, which caused foreigners to
dollar holdings in the United States. Part of the foreigners continued
to take America's continuing ftow of dollars, however, was an implicit, if not
for their acceptance of American I.O.U.'s (deficit dol-
United the holders of them the
Saudis) protection enemies. America's
its lack of fiscal discipline
A second involves the of After the oil price
hikes of the 1970s, the OPEC its Persian Gulf members,
20






them in the States Bodldecis1ons were of cons1derable economz bene
PEking sauadollars m zulls gave the Amcncmgovd
emment access to a huge pool of fore1EIICapual' ,;pncmg oum dollars meant
United States could pnnt money to buy oil power hought





FORCE 21
a joint Saudi-American naval task force against Iranian attacks on oil
Saudis' their oil production from 9.7
miIlion barrels per day 10.3, which level it could sus-
and kept it there for the next ten months. had a considerable
effect on oil
As in the other cases, in this American power alone was not
cause Saudi actions to lower oil prices, but it was essential because
turbulent period Saudi decisions on how much oil they would pump
were solely by economic factors. True, the Saudis, the
of the price hawks, which included the Iranians, had been pumping
since 1978 in orderto lower oil Saudis had also violated their long-
tenn strategy in March 1979, however, when they decided to cut oil production
by 1 mbd, primarily to Iran, a triggered a rapid increase in oil
prices. This pumping followed a political decision to
cally away from the United States. Only a few months later, however, the confiict
Saudi ruling farnily between an American- versus an Arab-oriented
was resolved in a led to a political reconciliation with
United States; and this political decision was followed by another to increase
oil production by 1 mbd, 1 1979. Iran-Iraq
Saudi pumping decisions were affected by political calculations about their
which the with the Americans played a promi-
nent role. If this in peacetime, surely it was so in wartime, too. The mil
protection announced Americans on September 30, 1980 was a
condition for the Saudi increase in oil production that followed in
October. Again, military power had
In sum, these . . . exarnples- . . . America's ability to run deficits,
and moderate oil prices-all illustrate just how pervasive hargain-
are in international politics and how military power
be linked politically to produce them. In all . . . cases, military power was not suf-
ficient. Without however, the United States could not have produced the favor-
able economic had achieved
NOTES
1. Exactly point is, is difficult to One could more rnili-
power is reasonable up point where other begin to tak:e coun
teractions. One that more amounts of power will worry
more of defensive power. One could
point where reasonable becomes unreasonable is more dependent perceived inten-
tions of the on its These points.
chapter, 1 cannot aggressive" and defensive"
1 show how to distinguish between offense-and-defense dorninant worlds. More military
power will buy a state more not powerful state,
unable to anning. Offensive rnilitary power is
22 Robert J, Art
defensive power two probably
fungible. Defensive military has less fungibility than power,
of course, a militarily powerful to power over
another state. 1 contest none points. What 1 do however, is mil-
instrument possesses rnore fungibility for the militarily the
weak this of force argument applies IDost
larly especially
2, David Baldwin, Paradoxes of Power (New York: Blackwell, 1989), 151-52, Bald
win first developed in and World Poli-
tics 31, 1979): 161-94, which volume of his previous1y
published essays
3, not fully developed, but consist of only
a sentence or two. game because Baldwin as il1ustra-
tions of his more point about the 1imits utility of
he did not develop 1ed him view. He was show
power is effective than commonly thought. 1
p1es to_ show how versatile power in fact is. Neither Baldwin nor 1, however, can
put a number of and 1 agree
begins to degree of money"
Baldwin, Paradoxes of Power, l35)
4. Baldwin, Paradoxes of Power, 133, 134, 135
5. Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the
1969 (New York: Holt, 1971), 536.
6. 1 have term from Emst
he does. He phrase to cooperation on economic mat
states of Westem Europe could have political relations.
on economic matters would political relations, induce
greater and lead ultimately to the political integration of Westem
Europe. See Emst Haas, Beyond the Nation State: Functionalism and lntemational Orga
nization (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964), 48
7. Solvency is to be distinguished from can be solvent but not liquid
refers ability of a to meet all its liabilities upon demand. Most bariks
are not able to do so, however, if demands are called at the reason IS
assets given tied up in cannot be called back on
short notice, but take time to convert into cash. The function of a central is to solve
problem of a nation's banking by short
tenn in order to prevent
2
The
Sources of Military Doctrine
BARRY R. POSEN
ORGANIZATIONS AND DOCTRINE
Deterrence


offensive
23