Henk Houweling

The Epidemiology of War, 1816-1980

Quantitative research into the causes of war is influenced by the choice that has to be made between time-series designs on the one hand and cross-sectional designs on the other. The assumption of independence is important for both of them. The present article investigates whether warfare is clustered in time and in space. Using a method of analysis proposed by epidemiologists, significant evidence is found for time-space interaction not only in participation in war but also in outbreaks of war.

Power Transitions and Critical Points as Predictors of Great Power War

Recently two putative causes of great power war - power transitions (as identified by Houweling and Siccama 1988) and critical points (as identified by Doran 1989) - have confronted each other. In subsequent publications Doran changed the dating of several of his critical points. The authors will demonstrate that these changes have the effect of increasing the positive association between nations passing through a critical point interval on their relative capability trajectory and their involvement in war. Doran correctly observes that power transitions in dyads do not increase the probability of fighting in these dyads when none of their members is simultaneously passing through a critical point interval. However, the authors show that the association between a major power passing through a critical point interval and its war involvement is much stronger in transition dyads than in nontransition dyads. A power transition in a dyad, in which at least one of its members is also passing through a critical point is a sufficient condition of war in that dyad. On the other hand, the mere occurrence of a critical point is but a necessary condition of war involvement.

Global Energy Security and Its Geopolitical Impediments: The Case of the Caspian Region

This article discusses the global geopolitics of energy security in the post-Cold War environment. Energy companies headquartered in western countries have long history of accessing energy resources beyond borders through invasion of the host by their home state, followed by domination and the creation of property rights to explore and sell oil. Conquest and domination, respectively voluntary exchange are the survival strategies of human groups in the global system. The article differentiates between demand-induced scarcity, supply-induced scarcity, structural scarcity, and the creation and transfer of property rights. Together, the behaviors referred to by these concepts create a field of social forces that cross state borders and involve state and non-state actors. Monopolizing control over energy resources by the Anglo-Saxon maritime powers was one of the causes of both world wars. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been creating a land-based extension of its post-World War II defense perimeter. It runs from Romania, via Central Eurasia, to Israel, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Overland transport increasingly connects economies and energy supplies on the Central European and Pacific sides of the Eurasian continent. The US, therefore, has decided to bring under its military umbrella the energy-carrying region between industrializing China and India, recovering Russia and unifying Europe. Chinas policy to secure its energy supply by direct contracting with the home state and legal owner of the stock, brings it into confrontation with the US. The latter consumes one-quarter of the energy assumed to be present in the Greater Middle East. In recent decades, the Chinese economy has been growing at a rate substantially above the worldwide growth rate, which implies that Chinas share in the world economy is increasing over time. Accordingly, China is becoming more dependent on imports, especially energy. The US domestic oil production peaked in 1970-71. Thus, the US has no spare capacity to provide its allies in Europe and East Asia in case of an interruption of supply. The conquest of Iraq by the US and its allies, and the transfer of the management of the oil sector from the state to a US tax-paying private company opens a new era of violent interstate competition for access to and control of fossil energy sources.

The neo‐functionalist explanation of world wars: A critique and an alternative

In this article we criticize explanations ofworldwar at the level of the international system: the hegemony‐stability theory developed by Gilpin and the world leadership model developed by Modelski and Thompson. In our view, (a) their statements are of a definitional nature instead of being empirically refutable propositions, (b) their statement that global war periods are more severe than hegemonic intervals is empirically incorrect, and (c) their conviction that global wars are functional, unjustifiably neglects the possibility that world wars are mere senseless slaughters. As an alternative explanation of the outbreak of world wars we propose a three‐level approach, starting with the war‐instigating effect of power transitions in dyads of major powers. Wars in dyads of contending nations are specifically prone to escalate during periods of capability deconcentration at the systemic level. In addition, the rise of democracy and the trading‐state may signal the abolition of a strategy of ‘conquest’ to at...

The Geopolitics of Power Projection in US Foreign Policy: From Colonization to Globalization

This Chapter studies continuity and innovation in the geopolitics of America in projecting power beyond legally recognized borders. Exporting cultural symbols expressing what America has on offer plays as crucial a role in the opening of societies beyond borders as commodity exports and the activities of the CIA and the US Air Force do. The historical part summarizes early experience and aims at uncovering continuity in the foreign policy of getting America offshore. The hypothesis is that the US objective of inserting power and influence in West and CEA is to deny to a single state, other than the US itself, or coalition of powers not including the US, the capability to set conditions for accessing the energy resources of West and CEA. Our argument is that such a dominating coalition of actors not including the US, would arise from the creation of overland energy and other transportation links among the industries of Western Europe, Russia, Turkey, Northeast Asia, and China, leading to economic unification of Eurasia. Economic unification by creating overland energy and transport links of much of Eurasia would deprive the US navy of its power to interdict supplies of oil and food to core industrial areas of Eurasia and Japan. The reassertion of Russian power in the Caucasus and Central Asia should therefore be prevented. The EU and Japan should be prevented from developing autonomous military power and be kept dependent on maritime transported energy and food supplies. China should not host pipelines connecting energy resources of West Asia and CEA with the industries of Japan and Korea, whose unification and economic and strategic merger with China should be prevented. Iraq, Iran, and the Saudi Kingdom should be reformed into powers friendly of the US. Energy unification by overland transport systems, leading to economic unification between industries of these entities, would give major powers of the Asian landmass the potential for setting conditions for the US state and non-state actors to access the resources on the largest of worlds islands. Such a power shift between the worlds continents would reduce the Western Hemisphere to a rather dependent offshore island between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

IR-Theory and Transformation in the Greater Middle East: the Role of the United States

This article analyzes why post-Cold War American foreign policy regarding the Greater Middle East (GME) changed course and why the United States having a virtual military monopoly fails to achieve its war aim in Iraq. To that end, the authors consult realist and liberal theory in international relations. Realists have a security-driven policy agenda. They fail to create a micro-level foundation in political man for the posited collective interest at the level of the state. Realists therefore produce indeterminate results. Liberal theory in international relations does have a micro-foundation in explanations of foreign policy choices in the form of the economic man. Liberal scholars therefore inquire into domestic sources of foreign policy decisions. However, the liberal national interest is not just a summation of private actor interests. These dominant approaches therefore fail to explain US foreign policy choices and policy outcomes in the region under study.The three quotations below create the problematic of this study:Today we are presented with a unique strategic opportunity. For more than 50 years we were constrained by a bipolar rivalry with a superpower adversary. Today and tomorrow, we have an opportunity to pursue a strategy of engagement and to design a military force to help the strategy succeed. I fully agree with the defense strategy of helping to shape the environment to promote US interests abroad.John Shalikashvili, Clintons Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1997)[Y]ou live now in the Mohammedan nation which, if the travelers accounts are to be believed, is intelligent and even refined. What is this irredeemable decadence dragging it down through the centuries? Is it possible that we have risen while they remain static? I do not think so. I rather think that the dual movement has occurred in opposite directions […] European races are often the greatest rogues, but at least they are rogues to whom God gave the will and the power and whom he seems to have destined for some time to be at the head of mankind […] the European is to other races of mankind what man himself is to the lower animals: he makes them subservient to his use, and when he cannot subdue he destroys them.Alexis de Tocqueville (1962: 75-76)Why is it that we did not complete our cultural journey, and how is it that we have ended up today in the very worst of times? What is it that made our predecessor pore over their desks, writing down and recording the marvels of mathematics and sciences and searching out the skies with the stars and constellations in order to discover their secrets, and driven by the love of knowledge, to study medicine and to devise medicaments even from the stomachs of bees […] Andalus became a lost place, then Palestine became Andalus.Mahmud Darwish (2004)

'All on the way to `Capitalism American style'?

The quote above from Frank reminds us of the banal truth that no ‘inside account’ of economic development of the now high-income economies will be complete without connecting domestic institutions of these countries to their external expansion by war, trade, plunder and investments. It is in this spirit that we review Models of Capitalism. The review article is organized in the following way. Section 1 is about the global context of competing national systems of political economy of high-income countries. The rationale of this part of the review is to assist the reader to better comprehend the position in the global system of the national systems of political economy under study in Models of Capitalism. The three volumes under review are about national systems at the apex of wealth and power in the global order. The upward mobility of today’s high-income countries towards the top-rank in the global order cannot be

Caspian energy: Oil and gas resources and the global market

This article develops several concepts of critical geopolitics and relates them to the energy resources of the Caspian Region. Energy resources beyond borders may be accessed by trade, respectively by conquest, domination and changing property rights. These are the survival strategies of human groups in the international system. The article differentiates between demand-induced scarcity, supply-induced scarcity, structural scarcity and the creation, respectively, transfer of property rights. Together, the behaviors referred to by these concepts create a field of social forces that cross state borders involving state and a variety of non-state actors. During World War II, the US began to separate the military borders of the country from its legal-territorial borders. By dominating the worlds oceans, the Anglo-Saxon power presided over the capacity to induce scarcity by interdicting maritime supplies to allies and enemies alike. Today, overland transport increasingly connects economies and energy supplies on the Eurasian continent. The US has therefore to go on land in order to pre-empt the land-based powers from unifying their economies and energy supplies.

The US and the EU in CEA: relations with regional powers

The US and the EU are important external actors in the post-Soviet CEA region. One challenge confronting US policymakers is balancing commercial interests in the region with security interests and foreign policy goals. These include a desire to contain Iran, partly because of its support for radical Islamic forces in the Middle East, to prevent regional conflicts, assist NATO-member Turkey—a critical ally in an area that is of top US-security interest, and to normalize its relations with China, whose military potential and alliance with Russia is perceived as a threat to its own security interests. Commercially, the EU is not as involved in CEA as the US. The main powers in the EU—Britain, France and Germany— give priority to other regions over CEA. Britain puts emphasis on the Baltic States, France focuses on North Africa, and Germany has been more preoccupied with the development of Eastern Europe. As a group, the member countries of the EU act mostly in the context of economic assistance and diplomatic contacts. Military agreements have been signed on a bilateral basis mostly with Georgia.