Week 6 - International organizations and where war has gone

I tend to agree with the realist critique of international organizations. I see organizations like the World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and even the United Nations as “ciphers for the state powers” rather than these institutions playing a vital role in spreading global norms. It only makes sense that these institutions are ciphers for the most powerful states. After all these institutions need to be funded and generally the most powerful states are the ones who do the funding. Furthermore, Koremenos, Lipson and Snidal bring up a valid point in regards to the prisoners dilemma and why corporation isn’t always reached. As the number of states increases the number of uncalculated options increases and thus uncertainty increases. All too often, even among allies, the uncertainty of states actions can bring about a response from other states. The cold war is a perfect example of this. The US began to build its military in response to the possible threat from the Soviet Union. Then the Soviet Union needed to build its own military in order to protect itself from the US build up. Then of course the US had to increase its own to protect against the increase by the Soviet Union and so on and so forth. I feel that while it is unrealistic to think that international organizations aren’t bias I think that it is all too easy for international organizations to become international political arms of individual states.

(In regards to Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, The Rational Design of International Institutions,” International Organization 55:4 (2001)

In regards to the discussion last night about what fundamental change has occurred, according to Waltz the way wars are fought has changed. Not only has the introduction of powerful conventional weapons increased the cost of fighting a war (both the monetary cost as well as the cost to human life) but also direct conflicts that are fought between two large countries are a thing of the past. The economic dependency that countries have with each other precludes them from fighting large direct conflicts with each other. War has transitioned to be something that poor or weak countries now take part in, where the costs are still relatively low. Waltz article was written in the late 1980s and I think if you look forward from that point until the present you will see that his prediction of the way that war has changed is true. There aren’t any large-scale “superpower” conflicts but rather small-scale conflicts that involve either two weak countries of a strong country against a weak country/organization. These types of conflicts help to lower the cost for the larger countries.

(In regards to Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18:4 (1988)