Thoughts on Realism, Liberalism, and Progressivism

Abstract

This essay is a general discussion on three images of international relations--realism, liberalism, and progressivism--as discussed in class sessions and in assigned readings for International Relations 310, “U.S. Foreign Policy,” as well as additional readings (principally from International Relations 308, “Fundamentals of International Relations:  Theory and Issues”).  The assignment for this paper was to take “a general position... on the arguments reviewed throughout the semester, explaining which position [is] most plausible and why.” This essay discusses how each of the three images plausibly describes specified classes of topics in international relations.

Realism

In the realist view, the state is the principal actor on the world stage.  Realism focuses on the high politics of national security and the relationships between great powers.  It is true that states are the only entities capable of exercising military power in the international environment. However, the world is becoming more interconnected via economic globalization and through the growth in number and influence of transnational political organizations. Also, non-state, transnational actors have gained the ability to threaten national security.

Realism views the state as a unitary actor.  The autocratic model of state leadership is more conducive to the realist view, in which executives have the freedom to act in the national interest without the constraints of legislative deliberation and public debate.  The realist view may, therefore, be increasingly becoming outmoded as more states become liberal democracies. Pluralist systems of governance are the antithesis of the unitary actor model. In such societies, the state can only approach the ideal of a unitary actor in areas where the state has a predominant position, such as in security issues when there is an acute threat.

Realists view the state as a rational actor seeking to maximize its own interest or national objectives in foreign policy.  However, particularly in an authoritarian state, which, ironically, is the form that most tends to behave unitarily, the leadership's rationality is not guaranteed.  Personal aggrandizement rather than national interest may be a leader’s objective.  On the other hand, in a pluralist society, there is seldom a consensus on what is in the national interest.  The maxim that "politics stops at the water's edge" only applies when there is an acute security threat.

To realists, national security issues are most important. In actual practice, the determination as to what are the most important issues is governed by the values of the policymakers.  In a pluralist society, national security issues only predominate when there is an acute threat.

The realist lesson of Munich is compelling.  A world war might well have been averted if Britain, France, and the Soviet Union had banded together against Germany.  The realist strategy of containment against the Soviet Union was successful for four decades.  In more recent times, however, the realist view has had some notable predictive failures, such as John Mearsheimer’s forecast of the breakup of NATO following the evaporation of the threat from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.[1]  Lesser powers should now be banding together to balance the sole remaining superpower, but this is not happening.

To explain this, the realist Michael Mastanduno argues that balancing behavior is a response to threat as well as to capabilities, and explains the current unipolar world as the result of a lack of perceived threat from the US against any major power.  This unipolar configuration could last for several decades if the US maintains its military and technological superiority, and at the same time, avoids the arrogance of power.[2]

In another work, Mearsheimer’s view of hegemony is starker. He argues that no state ever feels safe, that it never acquires enough power, and that “a great power that has a marked power advantage over its rivals is likely to behave more aggressively because it has the capability as well as the incentive to do so.”  He points to the historical examples of Napoleonic France, Bismarkian Prussia and Wilhelmine Germany, the British and Japanese Empires, and the rise of the United States.[3] But, as Peter Gowan suggests, the world is no longer nearly as dangerous a place as Mearsheimer assumes.  States typically do not face an existential threat. Wars are usually fought for limited political objectives, and rarely result in the elimination of a state.  Thus, there is no rational basis to assume that states seek to maximize power; rather, it is only necessary to have sufficient power to deny a potential adversary an inexpensive victory for a limited objective. At some point, the pursuit of power must reach one of diminishing returns.[4]

Mastanduno notes, “Realism views history as cyclical rather than progressive.”  In my view, this is a serious failing.  Even if we assume human nature to be immutable, the systems through which humans interact can, and do, evolve.  There may have been a time when realism was a reasonably good description of many of the interactions in the international system.  When states were much more insular and less interdependent, they could reasonably be modeled as billiard balls.  Thus, realism may better describe how we got to where we are now than what is happening now most of the time.  Realism may offer sound prescriptions on how to proceed from here only in the most extreme cases of power politics in which issues of national security predominate.  However, such crises should be viewed as the failure rather than the exercise of statecraft. The complex interdependence of the 21st century world, as well as the approaching limits of the world economy, necessarily mean that American hegemony is on a different trajectory from history’s other empires.

While the US may be the latest in the series of hegemonic powers, it must also be recognized that the character of its imperialism is distinctly different from that of its predecessors.  While it was able to expand across a continent with a low population density, because of its more liberal, urban, middle-class character at the end of the 19th century, the acquisition of Cuba and the Philippines brought on a profound identity crisis.  Even fervent imperialists as Theodore Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst, who wanted the US to assume its place among the great (and therefore imperialist) powers of the Earth, eventually came to realize that the war to put down Philippine independence was a mistake, and that the subjugation of foreign peoples would inevitably corrupt the American character.

Because it is a liberal democracy, and because it operates in a world that is trending toward increasing numbers of liberal democracies, a world more integrated by international institutions, transnational organizations, global communication, and trade, in most cases it need not exercise hard power, and, indeed, it has many incentives not to.  This process of systemic integration on a global scale necessarily means that the world is no longer as anarchic as realists have traditionally viewed it.  Thus, pluralists and institutionalists are closer to the mark in regarding America’s preeminent position in the world as characterized more by the exercise of soft power.  Because the world as a whole has yet to arrive at Francis Fukuyama’s (actually an update on G. W. F. Hegel’s) “End of History,” realism may from time to time inform our dealings with nonliberal regimes who are still stuck in History.[5] But, if there is, indeed, an end of History and if we are traveling the path toward it, as we go down that road, the realist view becomes that of a vista that is receding into history.

Liberalism

There seem to be at least two strains to liberalism.  Some authors emphasize international political forces, while others stress global economic forces.  The former are sometimes identified as pluralists, somewhat distinct in their focus from economic liberals.

Liberalism/pluralism, in contrast to realism, views both state and non-state actors as important.  Also, this image of international relations purports to describe the behavior not just of great powers, but lesser powers as well.  States are disaggregated into components, some of which may operate transnationally.  Some states disaggregate more than others, reflecting their degree of pluralism.  Pluralist societies can act more unitarily in a security crisis, uniting against a clear external threat.  Foreign policymaking and transnational processes involve conflict, bargaining, coalition, and compromise, not necessarily resulting in optimal outcomes.  There are multiple agendas, with socioeconomic welfare issues as, or more, important than national security questions most of the time.

John Ikenberry provides a bridge between realism and liberalism. He describes the current unipolar world as “a liberal hegemony,” characterized by the international institutions the US has constructed since the end of the Second World War.[6] The American hegemony is built on two grand bargains with other countries around the world:[7]

• The Realist Bargain.  The US provides Asian and European states with security and access to its markets in exchange for these states being stable and supportive partners.

• The Liberal Bargain.  Asian and European states accept American leadership and the world political-economic system.  In return, the US limits its own power by binding itself to its partners.  The US makes its power safe to the world and, in return, the world agrees to live in the American system.

Michael Doyle points out that liberal democracies are each other’s natural allies.  Liberal pacific alliances such as NATO, ANZUS, and the US-Japanese alliance are the best hope for the evolution of a peaceful world. He points out that liberal strategy faces special constraints:[8]

• If the strategic aim is to expand the liberal pacific union, the realist strategy of balance of power must be rejected with respect to other liberal states.

• Membership in the liberal community implies a duty to defend other members.

• Membership in the liberal community implies a duty to rescue fellow human beings from intolerable oppression.

According to Doyle, while liberal democracies can identify each other as allies, they must let enemies identify themselves.  First of all, the liberal community does not have the strength to embark on “crusades.”  Secondly, “crusades” are inconsistent with liberal values.  They would necessitate increased military spending, international subversion, and would probably have a negative effect on human rights.  Liberal strategy should therefore tend toward the defensive. The primary goal should be to preserve; the secondary goal, to expand the liberal community.  Expansion strategy rests on three methods:

1. Inspiration. The success of liberalism stands as an example for emulation, inspiring people to liberate themselves. There is no other socioeconomic theory that claims to be the wave of the future.  All others have collapsed or have been discredited. The role of the liberal community is to guide nonliberal regimes to the “End of History,” in which Immanuel Kant’s liberal pacific union is universal.

2. Instigation.  Commerce, tourism, educational, and scientific exchanges have a liberalizing effect on the elites of nonliberal countries.  Also, the pressure of war and military mobilization creates incentives for an authoritarian ruler to grant popular participation as a way of increasing the power resources of the state.  Other modes of instigation are active human rights diplomacy, indirect support for democratic governance, and providing electoral infrastructure such as voting machines and international observers.  The best chances for favorable outcomes are in countries that have entered the socioeconomic “transition zone” typically associated with democratic development.[9]

3. Intervention.  Direct efforts, including military intervention and overt or covert funding for democratic movements in target countries, can become discredited due to a nationalist backlash against foreign interference. Military intervention involves moral contradictions, and its efficacy is ambiguous. Nonintervention has better moral foundations.  It also helps encourage stability in the world order if nonliberal regimes can expect that the liberal union will not act preemptively.  It respects the rights of societies to develop their own way of life free of foreign interference.  Foreign states have no standing to question the legitimacy of the regimes of other countries in the name of the citizens of those countries.

Whereas realists emphasize the need for security in the Hobbesian war of each against all at the interstate level of action, economic liberals ignore security issues, possibly assuming that the state provides a sufficient level of security to most of its citizens most of the time, thereby freeing the individual from concern over basic survival issues to concentrate on improving his lot in life.  Efficient businesses thrive, inefficient ones go out of business. Continual competition maintains a constant pressure to produce better products at lower prices.  The poor are able to buy products cheaper than in any other economic system, raising their standard of living.  Economic liberals favor free trade because all the world becomes the stage on which the competition for efficient production can be played.  The more players, the more choices the market has.  More players have the opportunity to compete and specialize, thus there is more opportunity for efficiency.  As nations specialize, they also become more interdependent.  Strategic industries become outsourced overseas. In theory, this makes war less likely in that your adversary may be either your supplier or your customer.  War disrupts the chain of goods and services.

Some economic liberals are not entirely laissez faire.  Thomas L. Friedman argues for traditional social safety nets “to catch those who simply will never be fast enough or educated enough to deal with the Fast World.” In addition, he advocates “trampolines--programs that can catch workers who fall behind in this rapidly changing environment and retrain them so they can bounce back into the economy.”  Finally, he describes “trapezes” that allow risk-taking entrepreneurs “to swing free and take crazy leaps.”[10]

Progressivism

In the progressive image of international relations, classes, states and societies, and non-state actors operate as part of world capitalist system.  The international system is viewed from the historical perspective, especially the continuous development of world capitalism.  The focus is on patterns of dominance within and among societies, with economic factors being the most important.

Immanuel Wallerstein describes the world economy as an ongoing extensive and relatively complete social division of labor with an integrated set of production processes that relate to each other through a “market.”[11]  The political superstructure of this world economy is an interstate system within which and through which “sovereign states” are legitimized and constrained.  “Sovereignty” in reality means formal autonomy with real limitations on it, implemented via the explicit and implicit rules of the interstate system and enforced through the power of its member states. The capitalist world economy is defined by certain patterns – both cyclical rhythms and secular trends.

Wallerstein calls the capitalist world economy an historical structure, meaning that it existed from some given point in time till another (in this case, till now).  It has existed since the 16th century without either disintegrating or being transformed into a world empire (with a singular political structure).  This capitalist mode of production is dominated by those who operate on the primacy of endless accumulation to the exclusion of those operating on other premises.

This world economy operates via a social relationship involving capital and labor.  The surplus created by direct producers has been appropriated by others, either at the point of production or at the most immediate marketplace. In either case, the appropriators control the capital and their rights to the surplus are legally guaranteed.  Appropriators of surplus-value may sometimes be individuals, but increasingly more they have tended to be private or state corporations or other collective entities.  Once surplus value is appropriated, it is distributed among a network of beneficiaries.  These beneficiaries are determined by the structure of the world economy that permits an unequal exchange of goods and services (primarily trans-state).  Much of the surplus-value appropriated in the peripheral zones of the world economy is transferred to the core zones.

In the core/periphery relationship, products containing an unequal amount of social labor are exchanged from peripheral regions to core regions. There tend to be geographical localizations of productive activities such that core-like production activities and periphery-like production activities tend each to be spatially grouped together. Some sovereign states are core states and others are peripheral states.  Other states function as a locus of mixed kinds of production activities and are semi-peripheral.  No product is inherently core-like or periphery-like over time, though some are core-like and some are periphery-like at any time. In the main, what makes a production process core-like or periphery-like is the degree to which it incorporates labor-value, is mechanized, and is highly profitable.

While Wallerstein describes cyclical forces in capitalism, he also points out that the patterns of world economy are not entirely cyclical. It has an historical development that is structural and can be analyzed in terms of its secular trends.  The “outer” boundaries of the world economy can no longer be restructured much further for expansion, and now there is a single social division of labor on earth.  The structural limit of the commodification of labor is one where direct producers have no access to means of production except by selling their labor on the market (becoming proletarians). Though lifetime proletarians have grown in number steadily over time, they are still probably no more than half of the world’s work force. The structural limit of commodification of land and capital is one where controllers of land and capital (including human capital) have no access to the maintenance and reproduction of land and capital except by pursuing an active policy of maximal accumulation of capital (they become bourgeois).

Cyclical patterns imply regular downturns. Wallerstein tells us that regularity of economic stagnations is likely to be one of those regular downturns in patterns. So, because expansion comes after the stagnation, stagnation cannot be counted as crises. A crisis is a situation where the restitutive mechanisms of the system are no longer functioning well and transformation or disintegration is not long in coming. An example is capitalism emerging from the “crisis of feudalism” in Europe, circa 1300-1450. Ongoing, during the 20th century, is a similar crisis, Wallerstein argues.

The causes of the crisis are the contradictions built into the system and its process. A number of things are probably involved.  Downturn phases can no longer be overcome by expansion of the outer boundaries of the world economy since those limits are nearly reached.  Another way downturn phases have been overcome has been through the proletarianization of direct producers and by redistribution of the surplus among the world bourgeoisie.  But proletarianization has inbuilt limits.  The limits have not been reached, but the process has been speeding up.  Wallerstein predicts that its asymptote will likely arrive in the 21st century.  There is a larger group of world bourgeoisie that controls human capital than the smaller group that controls most of the fixed capital. The larger group has acquired considerable political power in core states. This ensures that an increasing proportion of surplus will be redistributed to them, reducing over the long run the rate of profit to the holders of fixed capital.  Increasing proletarianization and the constraints on individual mobility (because of how defining people position them in the world economy) have led to anti-systemic movements.  These movements have a logarithmic and cumulative effect.  We have entered into a phase of acute escalation.

Capitalist development, however, has not come to an end.  It is the prime cause of the crisis and, counter-intuitively, its continued vigor will exacerbate the contradictions in the system.  The crisis will not be imminently resolved and could take 150 years or more to play out.  Nevertheless, Wallerstein concludes, optimistically, that it gives rise to new possibilities of human action.

Synthesis

In a way, realism, liberalism, and progressivism remind me of the various ways of modeling the physical universe.  Realism is like Newtonian mechanics in that it treats states as unitary billiard balls, and as such, it describes a specific set of interactions.  On the other hand, liberalism, considering both its political and economic branches, is akin to quantum mechanics and relativity, describing interactions between more classes of actors at many different levels, as well as describing different behavior of states under circumstances not considered in realism.  Finally, progressivism is the socioeconomic analogue of evolution, treating the international political system and global capitalism as historical phenomena, having emerged from earlier forms, and in the process of transforming into some new system.  This set of analogies may be inexact, but I find them to be a useful construct, and it leads me to consider whether the choice between the three images of international relations is best viewed as situational rather than universal.  The choice then, is to determine which of the images to bring to bear in the analysis of specific problems, or possibly classes of problems. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

In my view, the state is the most public actor, and may well remain the most important one, particularly in the specific arena of national security and great power politics, but it is also necessary to consider the influences of the many other types of actors behind the scenes.  Classes, states, and societies, and non-state actors operate as part of the world capitalist system.  Lesser powers attempt to use transnational organizations to compensate for their weaker position.  States disaggregate into components, some of which may operate transnationally.  However, the study of international relations needs to be viewed from an historical perspective.  Patterns of dominance within and among societies strongly influence foreign policymaking and transnational processes that involve conflict, bargaining, coalition, and compromise.  Outcomes are not optimized for the state or the society, but for a dominant coalition of power elites.  For instance, even though economics determines the affordability of military power (the primary instrument of state power), capitalist states can allow policies that erode a state’s economic position.  Such policies benefit the elite few at the cost of state as a whole.  Meanwhile, because of advances in communication and transportation technologies, the world is becoming more integrated politically, culturally, and economically, while economic development, consumerism, and population increase are creating environmental problems, the solutions to which are a shared global responsibility.  The world system is evolving, and it is vital that we understand the evolutionary forces that are at work if we are to consciously influence the time-line toward positive outcomes.

Wallerstein’s conception of the evolving world socioeconomic system is reminiscent of current cosmological theory.  Capitalism began with a “Big Bang” in Renaissance Europe and has been expanding ever since, not continuously, but with certain cyclical forces superimposed on the secular trend.  However, while there are no observable limits to the universe, there are definite physical limits to the world we inhabit, and, as Wallerstein points out, socioeconomic limits as well.  As the world develops economically, birth rates decline, thus, in theory, capitalism will eventually organize all labor into one system, and the labor surplus of the periphery will approach zero.  As this process unfolds, labor costs will rise.  Eventually, capitalism will expand to include all markets and will have no further avenues for expansion.  Since capitalism depends on indefinite expansion, this represents a crisis.

While realism and liberalism have different theoretical underpinnings, economic liberalism, as it is practiced by the great powers, could be viewed as a disguised form of realism, in that the way that liberal-sounding policies are selectively practiced in their own national interest.  Economic liberalism further enhances the power of the rich, industrialized states.  If it did not, obviously these nations would not pursue liberal policies.  Instances of selective liberalism are:

• The US, the EU, Japan, and other industrialized nation subsidize agriculture, yet acting through IMF structural adjustment loans, they require indebted LDCs to repeal any existing agricultural subsidies in their own economies, thus giving the developed countries an unfair advantage.

• The US, Western Europe, and the Asian tiger economies developed in protectionist environments.  Now that they have benefited from past protectionist policy and have more to gain from free trade liberalism, they change the Gospel and enforce it through the WTO.

• Assets and profits are increasingly privatized, while risk and loss are increasingly socialized.  Both Susan George and Chalmers Johnson address this.[12]  Banks and corporate producers can afford to be risk-takers because they risk taxpayers’ obligations on behalf of shareholders’ earnings, giving them much to win and little to lose.  When corporations win, the shareholders put the dividends in their pockets; when they lose, the taxpayers reach into their pockets to bail them out.

While realists see the cause of war in the anarchic international system and in human nature, progressives define a causal link from poverty to political extremism to authoritarian regimes to aggression.  The pluralists’ recognition of a socioeconomic “transition zone” being associated with democratic development, leading to an expanding liberal pacific union, is essentially the other side of the same coin.  Progressives, however, also believe that the pursuit of wealth is a cause of war, in that an economically expansionist America engages in overseas military adventures in order to ensure compliant regimes in countries possessing vital resources, such as oil.  Logically, then, the path to peace must lie somewhere between abject poverty and predatory acquisitiveness, which seems obvious.  In any case, realists, liberals, and progressives all recognize limits on American freedom of military action in the international system. Realists such as Mastanduno argue that the US risks provoking a return of balancing behavior.  Liberals such as Doyle point out the moral contradictions of military intervention as being damaging to the liberal pacific union.  Finally, progressives such as Wallerstein assert the limitations on sovereignty implemented via the explicit and implicit rules of the interstate system and enforced through the power of its member states.

For all of these reasons, Richard Perle’s call for a preemptive, and if necessary, unilateral, strike against Iraq is dangerous.[13] Even more frightening is a report that hawkish members of the Bush administration “are pushing a sweeping vision for the Middle East that sees the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq as merely a first step in the region's transformation.”[14] Such courses of action fly in the face of liberal values.  They are inconsistent with the institutional nature of American hegemony, would certainly constitute “arrogance of power,” and therefore could lead states to reconsider the supposed benevolence of American leadership.  In the end, such ideas have proven to be unsustainable. Despite earlier bluster, the Bush administration has been compelled to go to the United Nations and obtain a new resolution demanding the return of weapon inspection teams.  The inspectors are now in Iraq.  The administration will find it difficult to justify a war against Iraq unless the inspectors find clear evidence of Iraqi programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Being the global hegemon does not give the US license to run around the world, inflicting its will as its whims dictate.  Rather, it means that it has the burden of acting responsibly to ensure international stability. Any military action must clearly be in the interest of the long-term stability of the present world system.  The casus belli must be so manifest as to command the assent of world opinion.  Also, as Brent Scowcroft points out, successful prosecution of the war on terrorism requires the active cooperation of the international community in shared intelligence and integrated police work.[15]  A display of arrogant power against Iraq would therefore seriously degrade our ability to fight transnational terrorism.

Even granted Perle’s assertions that Saddam Hussein’s “brutal rule includes slaughter, rape, mutilation, and the destruction of families,” this is unfortunately a problem for the Iraqi people, if not to solve entirely on their own, at least to take the initiative toward a solution.  In the absence, in Doyle’s words, of “clear evidence of majority dissatisfaction” with Saddam’s regime that “desires foreign intervention,” the international community has no moral authority to intervene.  Meanwhile, with the UN inspection regime back in place, we can contain Iraq even more effectively than we contained the Soviet Union.

Both Ikenberry’s and Doyle’s visions seem to present an overly rosy view of American world leadership.  Was American power safe for Vietnam, Grenada, or Panama?  Was American subversion of democratic governments in Guatemala and Chile for the purpose of forming a more perfect liberal pacific union? It remains to be seen whether these past actions are truly part of the past, part of the building of the American Empire, or whether such actions continue to characterize the maintenance of that empire, given to occasional instances of “arrogance of power.”

Economic liberals and progressives disagree on the effect of the globalization of the capitalist system on socioeconomic justice.  Liberals claim that while the gap between rich and poor is increasing, absolute poverty is declining worldwide, especially in developing countries that have fully enacted liberal policies and opened their systems to free trade.[16]  Progressives claim that Third World indebtedness to the industrialized North hobbles the development of the South and keeps it impoverished.

While progressives blame the voraciousness of the capitalist system for accelerating the depletion of the world’s resources and the destruction of the environment, economic liberals and enviro-capitalists claim that “wealthier is healthier,” that more citizens of more affluent societies demand a better environment in which to live.  In 1991, economists first reported a systematic relationship between income changes and environmental quality, known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). When first unveiled, EKCs revealed a surprising outcome: Some important indicators of environmental quality such as the levels of sulfur dioxide and particulates in the air actually improved as incomes and levels of consumption went up.[17]  On the other hand, a recent study concluded that there is little empirical support for an inverted-U-shaped relationship between several important air pollutants and national income.[18]

New technologies may alleviate some of the problems.  The capitalist drive for efficiency may save it from consuming the entire planet and drive it toward developing more efficient ways of using the limited resources of the planet.  Economic liberals argue that successful corporations can afford to invest in more environmentally-friendly technologies, but it is not clear that they have the incentive to do so.  This may require melding environmental policy and market forces in such a way that the environmental costs of manufacturing a product are factored into its sale price, and the environmental cost of operating a product is amortized over its life cycle.  It may also require a more environmentally-conscious consumerism that alters the forces of the marketplace to favor products with smaller environmental footprints.  Even in the best case scenario, there will probably be significant costs to changing the essential structure of the economic system.  It is not clear how we get there from here, who makes the decisions, and how the costs are distributed.

There are limits to growth; however, these are not hard and fast, but are defined in terms of market and social forces and technology. There is a limit to the number of internal combustion automobiles that can be operated on this planet for a given environmental load.  Fuel cell technology, being much cleaner, will increase the limit on automobiles; however, the electrical power needed to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen will probably still be supplied by fossil fuel-burning plants for the next several decades.  Fusion power generation will increase our limits even further; however, twenty-five years ago, it was estimated that the commercial application of this technology was twenty to fifty years away, and unfortunately, that is still the estimate.

As an aerospace engineer, I must point out that while we only have one Earth, we need not be limited to it forever.  In the past, the political left has regarded the space program as “macho and polluting.”[19]  This is unfortunate, for most advocates for a vigorous space program are socially progressive and environmentally conscious.  More to the point, for decades now, remote sensing from orbit has allowed us to discover new resources and manage them more intelligently, and to monitor environmental degradation.  Stewart Brand labeled the space satellite “an engine of the ecology movement.”[20]

Looking forward, the development of extraterrestrial resources will certainly not provide complete solutions to overpopulation, over-consumption, resource depletion, and environmental degradation, but it will increasingly become part of the solution.  The resources of the solar system are not available to us with current chemical propulsion technology, nor does this technology make it feasible for any but a handful of people to emigrate from Earth.  Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), while more efficient, would engender much of the same social resistance as nuclear fission power plants (NTP technology was developed in the 1960s for human interplanetary missions, but has never been used in actual spaceflight).  Even so, NTP would probably enable only limited extraterrestrial resource utilization, perhaps employing a few thousand or tens of thousands of off-planet workers.  The dramatic breakout will probably have to wait for fusion propulsion technology, which will probably lag the development of Earth-based commercial fusion power generation by several decades.  Fusion propulsion, of course, is only a gleam in the eyes of engineers, and its implications cannot yet be well understood.  Potentially, however, it could enable the full flowering of a transplanetary economy in which tens of millions of people live and work off-planet in its initial stages.  While I doubt that even this level of technology will enable enough people to emigrate from Earth to reduce its population by any appreciable degree, it should make it economically feasible to move a considerable portion of environmentally-destructive industries off-planet.  The Moon, Mars, and the Asteroids will become the new economic periphery, as core-like, predominately low-pollution, economic activity expands to encompass most of the Earth (the ultimate EKC).  No doubt, new socioeconomic and political problems will arise in this multiplanetary venue, even as we solve some of our old ones.  In any case, it is possible that the crisis in capitalism that Wallerstein foresees might either be averted or informed by economic expansion into the solar system, if we can keep the world economic system from hitting the wall before then.

These issues, of course, are too far in the future to bear much discussion in the context of international relations.  Nevertheless, if we have a vision of where it is possible for us to be in fifty or a hundred years, then international relations is one of the instruments we can use to plot our course toward that undiscovered country.

Notes