Contemporary Realism in Theory and Practice. The Case of the Ukrainian Crisis

The Case of the Uk­ra­i­ni­an Cris­is

Pol­gá­ri Szem­le, 13. évf. 1–3. szám, 2017, 362–369., DOI: 10.24307/psz.2017.0930

Jó­zsef Go­lo­vics, PhD stu­dent, Cor­vi­nus Uni­ver­sity of Bu­da­pest, In­ter­na­ti­o­nal Re­la­tions, Mul­ti­dis­cip­li­nary Doc­tor­al Scho­ol ( jozsef.​golovics@​unicorvinus.​hu).

Sum­ma­ry

This paper analy­zes the Uk­ra­i­ni­an cris­is th­ro­ugh the len­ses of the con­tem­por­ary re­a­list scho­ols of the the­ory of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions. One the one hand, it is cla­i­med that Rus­si­an res­pon­ses were mo­ti­vat­ed by the logic of the ba­lance of po­wers, upset by ac­tions taken by the West. On the other hand, we prove that re­al­ism still has sig­ni­fi­cant expla­na­to­ry power in the con­text of 21st cent­ury.

Jour­nal of Eco­no­mic Li­te­ra­tu­re (JEL) codes: F50, F51, F59
Key­words: in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions the­ory, re­al­ism, Uk­raine, Rus­sia


The sig­ni­fi­cance of re­a­list think­ing in in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions is un­quest­ion­ab­le. Re­al­ism has been the pre­do­mi­nant the­ory after the emer­gen­ce of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions as an aca­de­mic dis­cip­line, and des­pi­te harsh cri­tic­ism it has cons­ide­rab­le re­le­vance in the glo­ba­li­zed world of the 21st cent­ury (Dunne–Sch­midt, 2014:99–112). Ne­vert­he­less, it can­not be re­gar­ded as the sole the­ory, as se­ve­ral scho­ols of re­al­ism exist pa­ral­lel to one anot­her. No­wa­days, and espe­ci­ally after the end of the Cold War, three dif­fe­rent scho­ols pre­do­mi­na­te the re­a­list way of think­ing: de­fen­sive re­al­ism, of­fen­sive re­al­ism and neo-clas­si­cal re­al­ism.

In this paper it is cla­i­med that re­al­ism und­o­ub­tedly has a sig­ni­fi­cant expla­na­to­ry power in the field of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions, howe­ver, dif­fe­rent scho­ols of re­al­ism emp­has­i­ze dif­fe­rent as­pects of prac­ti­cal phe­no­me­na. As a re­sult, a we­ak­ness of one the­ory can be the strength of the other, but at the end of the day, re­al­ism as a bunch of dif­fe­rent the­ori­es su­i­tab­le for explain­ing and in­terp­ret­ing the events of world po­li­tics.

To prove the above cla­ims, the re­cent Uk­ra­i­ni­an cris­is is analy­zed. The­o­rists and analysts in­terp­ret this cris­is dif­fe­rently. One may claim that Rus­si­an Pres­ident Vla­di­mir Putin's agg­r­es­sive per­so­na­lity and an­ti­de­moc­ra­tic at­ti­tu­de is res­pon­sib­le for the re­cent events, while ot­hers might blame Wes­tern in­tel­li­gen­ce ser­vi­ces for the ous­ter of pro-Rus­si­an Uk­ra­i­ni­an Pres­ident Vik­tor Ya­nu­kovych. In this paper, we claim that the outbreak of the mi­li­tary conf­lict is ro­o­ted in the struc­tu­re of the in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem and its fea­tu­res made Rus­sia to act agg­r­es­si­vely. To argue for this view, we use the analy­ti­cal fra­me­work of of­fen­sive re­al­ism. In ad­di­ti­on, we also in­voke a de­fen­sive re­a­list app­ro­ach (the other sig­ni­fi­cant branch of struc­tu­ral re­al­ism) and neo-clas­si­cal re­a­list ideas to make a com­pa­ri­son with and supp­le­ment the of­fen­sive re­a­list way of think­ing.

The paper is struc­tu­red as fol­lows: the main cha­rac­te­r­is­tics of the three scho­ols of con­tem­por­ary re­al­ism are descri­bed, then they are app­li­ed to the Uk­ra­i­ni­an case. Fi­n­ally, we conc­lu­de the main find­ings of the paper.

Con­tem­por­ary The­ori­es of Re­al­ism

Alt­ho­ugh this paper fo­cus­es on con­tem­por­ary re­a­list the­ori­es, it is una­vo­i­da­b­le to spare some words on their backg­round. Alt­ho­ugh the descript­ion of clas­si­cal re­al­ism – inf­lu­en­ced by the Thu­ky­di­des, Ma­chi­a­vel­li and Hob­bes – falls beyond the scope of this study, it is worth no­ting that Mor­gen­thau's clas­si­cal re­al­ism was the pre­do­mi­nant scho­ol after WWII. Based on a pes­si­mis­tic view of man, this unit-le­vel app­ro­ach de­du­ced its find­ings from human na­tu­re. Clas­si­cal re­a­lists cla­i­med that since sta­tes are led by people, they also act like people: one state is a wolf to anot­her state and this is the rea­son why they pur­sue power.1

Struc­tu­ral re­a­lists also view in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics as a dang­erous game led by pur­su­it of power but their app­ro­ach is quite dif­fe­rent. Ins­tead of clas­si­cal re­a­lists' sta­te-le­vel angle, struc­tu­ral re­a­lists (also called neo-re­a­lists) claim for a sys­te­mic app­ro­ach and de­duct their find­ings from the struc­tu­re of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem. This tra­di­ti­on – ins­pi­red by na­tu­ral sci­en­ces and eco­no­mic the­ori­es of in­dust­ri­al or­ga­ni­za­tions – was star­ted by Waltz's se­mi­nal works and has been fol­lo­wed by ot­hers in the re­cent de­ca­des (Waltz, 1959; 1979). No­wa­days, the Walt­zi­an way of struc­tu­ral re­al­ism is often called “de­fen­sive re­al­ism”, while anot­her no­t­ab­le branch, of­fen­sive re­al­ism also plays an im­por­tant role in con­tem­por­ary struc­tu­ral re­a­list think­ing (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2013, 77–93).

In spite of this, struc­tu­ral re­al­ism has often been cri­ti­ci­zed for not being able to expla­in new glo­bal phe­no­me­na of the 21st cent­ury. The­re­fo­re a new scho­ol of tho­ughts, neo-clas­si­cal re­al­ism has emer­ged. In cert­ain respects it re­a­ches back to the roots of clas­si­cal re­al­ism to supp­le­ment the pre­sum­ed in­comp­lete­ness of neo-re­al­ism ( Jack­son–Sor­en­sen, 2013).

In the fol­lo­wing sub­sec­tions the main fea­tu­res of the three lat­ter the­ori­es are cha­rac­te­ri­zed. Since our furt­her analy­sis is pri­ma­rily based on of­fen­sive re­al­ism, the descript­ion beg­ins with its cha­rac­te­r­is­tics inc­lu­ding the over­view of basic proper­ti­es of struc­tu­ral re­al­ism in the broa­der sense. Then the dif­fe­ren­tiat­ing att­ri­bu­tes of the other two scho­ols are analy­zed.

 

Of­fen­sive Re­al­ism

 

Me­ars­he­i­mer is cons­idered to be the lead­ing scho­lar in of­fen­sive re­al­ism. The descript­ion below about the na­tu­re of of­fen­sive re­al­ism is based on his se­mi­nal book – The Trag­edy of Great Power Po­li­tics – and his other works (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2001).

Of­fen­sive re­al­ism is built on five be­drock as­sumpt­ions:

1.) The in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem is anar­chic. In this respect, anarchy is not equal to chaos but re­fers to the lack of hi­e­rarchy. It means that there is no cent­ral aut­ho­rity, “no night watch­man” that sta­tes could turn to for help in the case of emer­gency (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2010:387).

2.) Re­al­ism tra­di­ti­o­nally fo­cus­es on sta­tes but of­fen­sive re­al­ism emp­has­i­zes that great po­wers are the major players of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics and each of them pos­ses­ses some of­fen­sive mi­li­tary ca­pa­ci­ty. It imp­li­es that “sta­tes are po­ten­ti­ally dang­erous to each other” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2001:30).

3.) “Sta­tes can never be cert­ain about other sta­tes' int­ent­ions” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2001:31). This as­sumpt­ion does not refer to the ne­ces­sity of hos­ti­le int­ent­ions but emp­has­i­zes the dang­er of un­certainty.

4.) The pri­ma­ry goal of sta­tes is sur­vi­val. They may have furt­her ob­jec­ti­ves but they can­not seek them wit­ho­ut se­cu­ring their own exis­ten­ce. The­re­fo­re, sur­vi­val is more im­por­tant than any other mo­tive.

5.) Sta­tes are ra­ti­o­nal ac­tors. This as­sumpt­ion does not exc­lu­de the pos­si­bi­lity of mis­cal­cu­la­ti­on but cla­ims that sta­tes think strategi­cally and act int­ent­io­nally and ra­ti­o­nally in their best in­te­rest (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2009:241–256).

Me­ars­he­i­mer emp­has­i­zes that none of these as­sumpt­ions alone imp­li­es that sta­tes will act agg­r­es­si­vely to­wards each other, but the “mar­riage” bet­ween these five as­sumpt­ions crea­te a dang­erous world. Under these cir­cum­stan­ces sta­tes are af­ra­id of each other and the only way to se­cu­re their own sur­vi­val is to gain as much power as pos­sib­le. Howe­ver, this in­ten­si­fi­es the sense of in­se­cu­rity in other sta­tes that also make eff­orts at ac­ting si­mil­arly.

In this respect, power is a tool to gu­a­ran­tee sur­vi­val. In the re­a­list scho­ol of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics, power is usu­ally me­a­sured by mi­li­tary ca­pa­ci­ti­es, but Me­ars­he­i­mer cla­ims that mi­li­tary power is based on the so­cio-eco­no­mic backg­round of count­ri­es. As a re­sult, we­alth and the po­pu­la­ti­on – as the basis of la­tent power – also mat­ter.

Ne­vert­he­less, the pur­su­it of power leads to se­cu­rity com­pe­tit­ion – or a se­cu­rity di­lem­ma, in Her­zi­an terms – where “most steps a great power takes to en­hance its own se­cu­rity dec­re­a­se the se­cu­rity of other sta­tes” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2013:80). Under these cir­cum­stan­ces, the best way for a state to sur­vive is re­a­ch­ing he­ge­mony, in other words, ru­ling the sys­tem. Howe­ver, Me­ars­he­i­mer cla­ims that achi­eving glo­bal he­ge­mony is unat­ta­in­ab­le be­ca­u­se of the large bo­di­es of water on the globe. Since of­fen­sive re­al­ism ar­gues for the pri­macy of con­vent­io­nal mi­li­tary for­ces (i.e. nuc­lear wea­pons only serve de­fen­sive goals), oceans pre­vent great po­wers from ob­tain­ing and sus­tain­ing do­mi­nance over dis­tant con­ti­nents. As a con­se­qu­en­ce, great po­wers seek to gain re­gi­o­nal he­ge­mony and pre­empt other sta­tes “in other re­gions from dup­li­cating their feat” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2006:160).

Non­et­he­less, this be­ha­vi­or al­ways ge­ne­ra­tes conf­licts bet­ween sta­tes. The pur­su­it of re­gi­o­nal he­ge­mony af­fects the in­te­rest of ne­igh­bor­ing sta­tes be­ca­u­se it up­sets the ba­lance of po­wers in fa­vo­ur of the emer­ging great power. Ac­cord­ing to the the­ory of of­fen­sive re­al­ism, the af­fec­ted sta­tes can res­pond in eit­her of two ways: they may form a ba­lanc­ing co­a­lit­ion aga­inst the po­ten­ti­al he­ge­mon, or cho­o­se a 'buck-pas­sing'2 strategy. In ad­di­ti­on, the pre­vent­ion of the emer­gen­ce of anot­her re­gi­o­nal he­ge­mon (in anot­her re­gi­on) is also a conf­lic­tu­al pro­cess. In as much as the exist­ing re­gi­o­nal he­ge­mon wants other re­gions to be di­vi­ded it has to con­ta­in as­pi­ring he­ge­mons by form­ing ba­lanc­ing co­a­lit­ion aga­inst them. As a con­se­qu­en­ce, the rise of a great power – which is en­co­d­ed in the logic of the se­cu­rity com­pe­tit­ion under anarchy – al­ways leads to conf­licts and agg­r­es­sive strate­gi­es. At the end of the day, this is the rea­son why “in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics is a nasty and dang­erous busi­ness” and ac­cord­ing to Me­ars­he­i­mer “that is the trag­edy of great power po­li­tics” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2006:162).

 

De­fen­sive Re­al­ism

 

Waltz's the­ory of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics (Waltz, 1979) rep­re­sen­ted the “ori­gi­nal” way of struc­tu­ral re­a­list think­ing, but after the emer­gen­ce of Me­ars­he­i­mer's of­fen­sive re­al­ism, it has often been la­bel­led as “de­fen­sive re­al­ism” ( Jack­son–Sor­en­sen, 2013; Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2013). No­wa­days, pro­mi­nent scho­lars like Posen, Sny­der and Van Evera be­long to this scho­ol of tho­ught. Since of­fen­sive re­al­ism is built on Waltz's syst­em­le­vel app­ro­ach in many respects, the ge­ne­ral fea­tu­res of struc­tu­ral re­al­ism are not re­pea­ted here. Howe­ver, the fol­lo­wing descript­ion pro­vi­des an over­view of those ideas of de­fen­sive re­al­ism which dif­fer from those of of­fen­sive re­al­ism.

The main de­ba­te bet­ween the two scho­ols of struc­tu­ral re­al­ism con­cerns the “ade­qua­te amount” of power. Cont­rary to of­fen­sive re­al­ism, de­fen­sive re­a­lists do not think that sta­tes want as much power as pos­sib­le (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2013). Ins­tead, they are cons­idered to strive only for the app­rop­ria­te amount of power (Waltz, 1989:39–52) to ma­in­ta­in the exist­ing ba­lance of po­wers and to pre­vent the tri­gger of a coun­ter­ba­lanc­ing co­a­lit­ion aga­inst them (Dunne–Sch­midt, 2014).

Furt­her­mo­re, de­fen­sive re­a­lists claim that the costs of con­quest often ex­ce­ed its be­ne­fits. In other words, the “ba­lance bet­ween of­fen­se and de­fen­ce” – which is an im­por­tant sub­ject of in­vestiga­ti­on among de­fen­sive re­a­lists – fa­vo­urs the de­fen­sive strategy on many oc­cas­ions (Van Evera, 1998:5–43). The­re­fo­re, ra­ti­o­nal actor sta­tes pre­fer the ma­in­ten­ance of ba­lance of po­wers to ac­ting agg­r­es­si­vely to­wards ot­hers.

In sum, “de­fen­sive re­al­ism pre­sents a slightly more op­ti­mis­tic view of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics” (Ta­lia­fer­ro, 2000:159). Alt­ho­ugh de­fen­sive re­a­lists also claim that great po­wers seek to gu­a­ran­tee their sur­vi­val in the anar­chic struc­tu­re of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions, they emp­has­i­ze that since the pur­su­it of power can ea­sily back­fi­re, sta­tes “tem­per their ap­pe­ti­te for power” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2013:82).

 

Neo-Clas­si­cal Re­al­ism

 

The end of the Cold War ba­si­cally chang­ed the in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem. New phe­no­me­na emer­ged that chal­len­ged struc­tu­ral re­al­ism too. It also pro­vo­ked the emer­gen­ce of a new scho­ol of re­al­ism: neo-clas­si­cal re­al­ism. Neo-clas­si­cal re­a­lists (e.g. Rose, Sch­wel­ler, Za­ka­ria) built their the­ori­es mostly on Waltz's struc­tu­ral re­al­ism, howe­ver, they also re­a­ched back to the roots of clas­si­cal re­al­ism. Mo­re­o­ver, they were also ins­pi­red by li­be­ral app­ro­a­ches that do­mi­na­ted in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions the­ory at the turn of the mil­le­ni­um ( Jack­son–Sor­en­sen, 2013).

Neo-clas­si­cal re­a­lists at­tempt to inc­lu­de ad­di­ti­o­nal – in­di­vi­du­al and do­m­es­tic fac­tors – in their analy­sis in order to move beyond the par­si­mo­no­us as­sumpt­ions of neo-re­al­ism (Dunne–Sch­midt, 2014). Alt­ho­ugh they ak­now­ledge the struc­tu­ral re­a­list ar­gu­ment about the im­por­tance of the in­ter­na­ti­o­nal anarchy, they claim that the struc­tu­re of the in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem only pro­vi­des in­cen­ti­ves for sta­tes but it does not pre­de­ter­mi­ne their be­ha­vi­or. The out­co­me of fo­rei­gn po­li­cy is inf­lu­en­ced by in­ter­nal cha­rac­te­r­is­tics of state and po­li­ti­cal le­aders­hip, as well as by do­m­es­tic so­ci­etal ac­tors, like in­te­rest gro­ups too (Lob­ell–Rips­man–Ta­lia­fer­ro, 2009; Rose, 1998:144–172). As Rose cla­ims, this app­ro­ach has much in com­mon with his­to­ri­cal that of ins­ti­tu­ti­o­na­list too. Non­et­he­less, in this re­gard, sta­tes are not trea­ted as “like units”, and fo­rei­gn po­li­cy be­co­mes an im­por­tant tool that may help scho­lars to expla­in dif­fe­rent strate­gi­es among na­tions (Dunne–Sch­midt, 2014).

The Uk­ra­i­ni­an Cris­is

In 2014, se­ve­ral re­vo­lu­ti­on­ary events took place in the Uk­raine that pro­vo­ked the Rus­si­an an­ne­xa­ti­on of the Cri­mea. Howe­ver, the outbreak of a mi­li­tary cris­is was pre­ce­ded by ac­tions taken by Wes­tern count­ri­es. In the cur­rent sec­ti­on the analy­ti­cal fra­me­work of of­fen­sive re­al­ism (with furt­her ad­di­tions) is used to claim that the outbreak of the cris­is was en­co­d­ed in the in­ter­na­ti­o­nal struc­tu­re and the agg­r­es­sive Rus­si­an res­pon­se was ine­vi­tab­le under the cur­rent cir­cum­stan­ces.

Ac­cord­ing to the of­fen­sive re­a­list ar­gu­ments, the NATO ex­pan­si­on and the Euro­pe­an Union as­so­ci­a­ti­on pro­cess are two major fac­tors that must not be neg­lec­ted in re­la­ti­on to the Uk­ra­i­ni­an cris­is (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2014:1–12). Firstly, the 2008 NATO sum­mit held in Bucha­rest made an at­tempt at gett­ing the Uk­raine clos­er to the West. The Sum­mit Dec­la­ra­ti­on sta­ted that “NATO wel­co­mes Uk­raine's and Geor­gia's Eu­ro-At­lan­tic as­p­ira­tions for mem­ber­ship in NATO” and “these count­ri­es will be­co­me mem­bers of NATO”.3 Alt­ho­ugh furt­her vir­tu­al steps were not taken for the mi­li­tary in­cor­pora­ti­on of Uk­raine into the Wes­tern al­li­ance, the dec­la­ra­ti­on of int­ent above may be cons­idered as a di­rect th­re­at from the Rus­si­an point of view. The ex­pan­si­on of the Euro­pe­an Union had a si­mil­ar but more di­rect ef­fects on the conf­lict. Fol­lo­wing the la­unch of its Ea­s­tern Part­ner­s­hip Prog­ramme in 2008, the Euro­pe­an Union plan­ned to sign an as­so­ci­a­ti­on ag­ree­ment with the Uk­raine, which was dec­li­ned by Uk­ra­i­ni­an Pres­ident Vik­tor Ya­nu­ko­vich at the end of 2013. This as­so­ci­a­ti­on would have meant the eco­no­mic in­te­gra­ti­on of Uk­raine in the West. Howe­ver, this act would have been a hos­ti­le ac­ti­on to Rus­sia's in­te­rest. Ne­vert­he­less, this veto pro­vo­ked se­ri­o­us pro­tests in the Uk­raine that led to the overth­row of Pres­ident Ya­nu­ko­vich and fi­n­ally made Rus­sia to res­pond by mi­li­tary in­ter­vent­ion in Uk­raine.

Any­way, the struc­tu­ral re­a­list (both of­fen­sive and de­fen­sive re­a­list) in­terp­re­ta­ti­on of the events is stra­ight­for­ward: the Uk­raine's in­cor­pora­ti­on into the Wes­tern – eit­her eco­no­mic or mi­li­tary – ins­ti­tu­tions would have upset the ba­lance of po­wers, and Rus­sia could not let that hap­pen. The rea­son why Putin ans­we­red agg­r­es­si­vely was not of his per­so­nal at­ti­tu­de or ir­ra­ti­o­na­lity but since the struc­tu­re of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem made him to act so. As Wes­tern ac­tions at­temp­ted to alter the sta­tus quo of the re­la­tive power which would re­du­ce Rus­sia's sense of se­cu­rity, the prin­cip­les of re­a­lists' self­help world for­ced Putin to react by mi­li­tary means. In this respect, Rus­si­an mi­li­tary in­ter­vent­ion in the Cri­mea and Ea­s­tern Uk­raine ser­ved as a ra­di­cal step to­wards the re­cu­per­a­ti­on of the ba­lance of po­wers.

Ne­vert­he­less, the expla­na­tions given for the Wes­tern strategy may dif­fer among – and even wit­hin – dif­fe­rent re­a­list app­ro­a­ches. The fact that the vir­tu­al actor be­hind the term “West” is not stra­ight­for­ward also comp­li­ca­tes in­terp­re­ta­ti­on. Alt­ho­ugh the Uni­ted Sta­tes can be cons­idered as a major actor in the conf­lict, of­fi­ci­ally it has noth­ing to do with the Euro­pe­an Union's as­so­ci­a­ti­on ag­ree­ment. Cons­ider­ing the Euro­pe­an Union as the main Wes­tern actor is also prob­le­ma­tic: ac­cord­ing to struc­tu­ral re­al­ism, sta­tes are the only sig­ni­fi­cant players in in­ter­na­ti­o­nal po­li­tics, mo­re­o­ver, the Euro­pe­an Union does not even have an ef­fec­tive com­mon fo­rei­gn po­li­cy. Non­et­he­less, we igno­re these coun­ter­ar­gu­ments and cons­ider that the US (as the lead­ing count­ry of NATO) and the Euro­pe­an Union as such were the main ac­tors wit­hin the Wes­tern al­li­an­ces.

Re­gard­ing NATO ex­pan­si­on, a re­gu­lar of­fen­sive re­a­list ar­gu­ment could sug­gest that the Uni­ted Sta­tes – as a re­gi­o­nal he­ge­mon in the Wes­tern He­misp­he­re – wan­ted to pre­vent the emer­gen­ce of anot­her po­ten­ti­al re­gi­o­nal he­ge­mon. Howe­ver, Rus­sia can­not be cons­idered as an as­pi­ring he­ge­mon. In spite of Euro­pe's de­pen­den­ce on Rus­si­an energy, Rus­sia is not a pros­pe­rous count­ry. Alt­ho­ugh it has re­mar­ka­ble mi­li­tary ca­pa­ci­ti­es, their tech­no­logy is quite old-fashi­on­ed and the count­ry's la­tent power – based on its eco­no­mic po­ten­ti­al – is also weak. Thus as Me­ars­he­i­mer cla­ims (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2014), Rus­sia is a dec­li­n­ing power which imp­li­es that the Uni­ted Sta­tes need not have to make at­tempts at con­tain­ing it by ex­panding NATO's sphe­re of in­te­rest.

Ac­cept­ing the above ar­gu­ment, of­fen­sive re­a­lists might also claim that a mis­cal­cu­la­ti­on or simply mis­ta­ken de­ci­sions were made both in the US and in the Euro­pe­an Union. Such ac­tions are more com­mon if the se­cu­rity of the state is not in dang­er, as then they can pur­sue furt­her goals bes­ides sur­vi­val. In this respect, one might claim that over­con­fi­den­ce about their own se­cu­rity made the US and the Euro­pe­an Union to move into Rus­sia's bac­k­yard wit­ho­ut think­ing th­ro­ugh the con­se­qu­en­ces of this act.

The Uk­raine's Wes­tern in­te­gra­ti­on does not fit into the de­fen­sive re­a­list the­ory eit­her. Ac­cord­ing to them, ra­ti­o­nal ac­tors tem­per their ap­pe­ti­te for power in order to pre­vent conf­licts. Non­et­he­less, this did not hap­pen to the West in the case of the Uk­ra­i­ni­an cris­is, and as a re­sult, ins­tead of ma­in­tain­ing the ba­lance of po­wers, they upset it.

Howe­ver, neo-clas­si­cal re­al­ism may pro­vi­de expla­na­tions for these strategi­cally wrong ac­tions. They might claim that Ame­ri­can and Euro­pe­an de­ci­si­on-ma­kers were inf­lu­en­ced by do­m­es­tic fac­tors (e.g. need for vo­te-ma­xi­mi­za­ti­on in do­m­es­tic po­li­tics; pres­su­re from the pro­po­nents of de­moc­racy ex­port and from busi­ness in­te­rest gro­ups etc.). Ac­cord­ing to this in­terp­re­ta­ti­on, const­ra­ints on the anar­chic in­ter­na­ti­o­nal sys­tem were in­ef­fec­tive on Wes­tern po­li­ti­ci­ans, who sub­jec­ted their fo­rei­gn po­li­cy to se­con­dary goals (ins­tead of tak­ing care of the ba­lance of po­wers).

Tho­ugh, neo-clas­si­cal ar­gu­ments pro­vi­de a plau­sib­le expla­na­ti­on for the be­ha­vi­o­ur of Wes­tern count­ri­es, it may shed new light on Rus­si­an strategy too. Na­mely, do­m­es­tic fac­tors might have inf­lu­en­ced Rus­si­an Pres­ident Putin too. Alt­ho­ugh the idea about a rough Putin who wants to show strength to his own people, come from the li­be­ral scho­ols of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions, it might be com­pa­tib­le with neo-clas­si­cal re­al­ism too. Ne­vert­he­less, this view can­not overw­rite the fact – which is a re­cog­ni­zed one in neo-clas­si­cal re­al­ism too – that agg­r­es­sive res­pon­se was ma­inly mo­ti­vat­ed by the crude logic of ba­lance of power.

Conc­lu­sions

This paper aims to over­view the main cha­rac­te­r­is­tics of con­tem­por­ary re­a­list the­ori­es and in­ten­ded to show their app­li­ca­bi­lity in the glo­ba­li­zed world of 21st cent­ury. As pre­sen­ted in the case study about the Uk­ra­i­ni­an cris­is, re­al­ism has not lost its expla­na­to­ry power after the Cold War: the world has not chang­ed and in­ter­na­ti­o­nal re­la­tions are still gover­ned by great power po­li­tics. We also showed that dif­fe­rent scho­ols of con­tem­por­ary re­al­ism may per­form dif­fe­rently in in­terp­ret­ing dis­tinct as­pects of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal events but at the end of the day, re­al­ism as a bunch of se­ve­ral the­ori­es is comp­let­ely able to expla­in them.

In the case of the Uk­ra­i­ni­an cris­is, we cla­i­med that Rus­si­an res­pon­se was pri­ma­rily mo­ti­vat­ed by the logic of the ba­lance of po­wers. Since the West moved into Rus­sia's sphe­re of in­te­rest, Putin was for­ced to apply his own vers­ion of the “Mon­roe Doctri­ne” (Me­ars­he­i­mer, 2014). In this respect, Rus­sia was not dri­ven by “evil int­ent­ions”, but by the ever­la­st­ing logic of great power po­li­tics.

Notes

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