Theoretical Framework: Security Dilemma Reconsidered

Raditio, Klaus Heinrich

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-1283-0_2

Klaus Heinrich Raditio²

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Abstract

The chapter presents the works of prominent scholars in international relations, especially from realist tradition. Security dilemma finds its foundation in the classical works of Butterfield, Hertz, and Jervis. The real definition of security dilemma must stick to the original idea of these scholars. It consists of three constitutive elements: uncertainty, lack of malign intention, and self-defeating (paradoxical) policies. These elements must exist for security dilemma to apply. In addition, this chapter also discusses the differences between offensive and defensive realism—which set a solid foundation to understand China’s behaviour in the South China Sea.

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Notes

1.
Shiping Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 33.
2.
Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited,” International Security, 25, no. 3 (2000): 128–61; Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 118.
3.
A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 34.
4.
Herbert Butterfield, History and Human Relations (London: Collins, 1951), 19–20.
5.
John H. Herz, “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, 2, no. 2 (1950): 157–80.
6.
Alan Collins, “State-Induced Security Dilemma: Maintaining the Tragedy,” Cooperation and Conflict, 39, no. 1 (2004): 27–44; Taliaferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited,” 128–61; Robert Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 3, no. 1 (2001): 36–60.
7.
“Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, 30, no. 2 (1978): 167–214.
8.
Barry R. Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict,” Survival, 35, no. 1 (1993): 27–47; Wagner in Randall L. Schweller, “The Logic and Illogic of the Security Dilemma and Contemporary Realism: A Response to Wagner’s Critique,” International Theory, 2, no. 2 (2010): 288–305; Glenn H. Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics, 36, no. 4 (1984): 461–95; Paul Roe, “Actors’ Responsibility in ‘Tight’, ‘Regular’ or ‘Loose’ Security Dilemmas,” Security Dialogue, 32, no. 1 (2001): 103–16; Andrew Kydd, Trustand Mistrust in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 13; Evan Braden Montgomery, “Breaking Out of the Security Dilemma: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty,” International Security, 31, no. 2 (2006): 151–85; Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1979), 186–87.
9.
Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 9.
10.
Ibid., 4.
11.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 39.
12.
Ibid., 40.
13.
“Social Evolution of International Politics: From Mearsheimer to Jervis,” European Journal of International Relations, 16, no. 1 (2010): 31–55.
14.
Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 1991).
15.
Butterfield, History and Human Relations, 22.
16.
Reinhold Niebuhr, Beyond Tragedy: Essays on the Christian Interpretation of History (London: Nisbet, 1938), 103.
17.
Ibid., 105.
18.
Brian Schwertley, “Man’s Need of Salvation: Total Depravity and Man’s Inability,” (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
19.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 35.
20.
John H. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism: A Study in Theories and Realities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 3–4.
21.
Alan Collins, The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
22.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Strathfield, NSW: St. Pauls, 2000), second ed., n. 405.
23.
Jeremy Cohen, “Original Sin as the Evil Inclination—A Polemicist’s Appreciation of Human Nature,” Harvard Theological Review, 73, no. 3–4 (1980): 495–520.
24.
Ibid.
25.
E. J. Hamilton and B. C. Rathbun, “Scarce Differences: Toward a Material and Systemic Foundation for Offensive and Defensive Realism,” Security Studies, 22, no. 3 (2013): 436–65.
26.
Ibid., 447.
27.
Christoph Bluth, “The Security Dilemma Revisited: A Paradigm for International Security in the Twenty-First Century?,” The International Journal of Human Rights, 15, no. 8 (2011): 1362–77.
28.
Swaine, “China’s Assertive Behavior—Part One: On ‘Core Interests’”.
29.
Tang, “Social Evolution of International Politics: From Mearsheimer to Jervis,” 31–55.
30.
Butterfield, History and Human Relations, 20–22; Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?,” 36–60; Schweller, “The Logic and Illogic of the Security Dilemma and Contemporary Realism: A Response to Wagner’s Critique,” 288–305; Taliaferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited,” 128–61; Kydd, Trustand Mistrust in International Relations, 13; Collins, “State-Induced Security Dilemma: Maintaining the Tragedy,” 27–44.
31.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 49–54.
32.
Ibid., 31.
33.
John J. Mearsheimer, “Can China Rise Peacefully?,” The National Interest, 25 October 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204 (accessed 28 October 2016).
34.
Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 65.
35.
Charles L. Glaser, “The Security Dilemma Revisited,” World Politics, 50, no. 1 (1997): 171–201.
36.
Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” Ibid. 30, no. 2 (1978): 167–214.
37.
Randall L. Schweller, “Neorealism’s Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?,” Security Studies, 5, no. 3 (1996): 90–121.
38.
Shiping Tang, “A Systemic Theory of the Security Environment,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, 27, no. 1 (2004): 1–34.
39.
Charles L. Glaser, “Political Consequences of Military Strategy: Expanding and Refining the Spiral and Deterrence Models,” World Politics, 44, no. 4 (1992): 497–538; Andrew Kydd, “Game Theory and the Spiral Model,” Ibid. 49, no. 3 (1997): 371–400.
40.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 118–19.
41.
Ibid., 31.
42.
Hamilton and Rathbun, “Scarce Differences: Toward a Material and Systemic Foundation for Offensive and Defensive Realism,” 436–65.
43.
Ibid.
44.
Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 18, no. 4 (1988): 615–28.
45.
John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, 19, no. 3 (1994): 5–49.
46.
Hamilton and Rathbun, “Scarce Differences: Toward a Material and Systemic Foundation for Offensive and Defensive Realism,” 436–65.
47.
Ibid.
48.
Ibid.; Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126.
49.
Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations.
50.
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 126.
51.
Hamilton and Rathbun, “Scarce Differences: Toward a Material and Systemic Foundation for Offensive and Defensive Realism,” 436–65.
52.
John Fraher, “Arms Spending Spree in Southeast Asia Has Singapore Worried,” Bloomberg, 24 March 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-24/arms-spending-spree-in-southeast-asia-has-singapore-worried (accessed 1 November 2016).
53.
Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” 167–214.
54.
“Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?,” 36–60.
55.
“Dilemmas About Security Dilemmas,” Security Studies, 20, no. 3 (2011): 416–23.
56.
Shiping Tang, “From Offensive to Defensive Realism: A Social Evolutionary Interpretation of China’s Security Strategy,” China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics, (2008): 141–62.
57.
Yves-Heng Lim, “A Tale of Two Realisms in Chinese Foreign Policy,” China: An International Journal, 9, no. 2 (2011): 299–312.
58.
Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?,” 36–60.
59.
Booth and Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics, 45–46.
60.
Schweller, “The Logic and Illogic of the Security Dilemma and Contemporary Realism: A Response to Wagner’s Critique,” 288–305.
61.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 41.
62.
Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations, 73–74.
63.
Ibid., 18–19.
64.
Collins, The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia, 6–7; Glaser, “The Security Dilemma Revisited,” 171–201; Booth and Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics, 45–47; Schweller, “The Logic and Illogic of the Security Dilemma and Contemporary Realism: A Response to Wagner’s Critique,” 288–305.
65.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 62–64.
66.
Roe, “Actors’ Responsibility in ‘Tight’, ‘Regular’ or ‘Loose’ Security Dilemmas,” 103–16.
67.
John Baylis and N. J. Rengger, Dilemmas of World Politics: International Issues in a Changing World (New York: Clarendon Press, 1992).
68.
Roe, “Actors’ Responsibility in ‘Tight’, ‘Regular’ or ‘Loose’ Security Dilemmas,” 103–16.
69.
Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” 461–95.
70.
Collins, “State-Induced Security Dilemma: Maintaining the Tragedy,” 27–44.
71.
The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia, 135.
72.
Walter Lee, “China’s Unassertive Rise: What Is Assertiveness and How We have Misunderstood It?,” International Journal of China Studies, 4, no. 3 (2013): 35.
73.
Glaser, “The Security Dilemma Revisited,” 171–201.
74.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 43.
75.
“Social Evolution of International Politics: From Mearsheimer to Jervis,” 31–55.
76.
Ibid., 32.
77.
Waltz, “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory,” 615–28.
78.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 43.
79.
Ibid., 44.
80.
Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations, 30.
81.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 64.
82.
Ibid., 206.
83.
Ibid., 66.
84.
Schofield and Storey, The South China Sea Dispute: Increasing Stakes and Rising Tensions, 27.
85.
Collins, The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia, 154.
86.
Shiping Tang, “Offence-Defence Theory: Towards a Definitive Understanding,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, 3, no. 2 (2010): 213–60.
87.
Ibid., 259.
88.
“Fear in International Politics: Two Positions,” International Studies Review, 10, no. 3 (2008): 451–71.
89.
A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 102.
90.
Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations.
91.
Ibid., 50.
92.
Ibid., 58.
93.
Ibid., 61–63.
94.
Booth and Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics, 10–18.
95.
Buzan, People, States, and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, 208.
96.
Booth and Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics, 16.
97.
Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 47; Schweller, “Neorealism’s Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?,” 90–121; Collins, The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia, 174.
98.
Andrew Kydd, “Trust, Reassurance, and Cooperation,” International Organization, 54, no. 2 (2000): 325–57.
99.
Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” 167–214.
100.
Tang, “Offence-Defence Theory: Towards a Definitive Understanding,” 213–60.
101.
Kydd, “Trust, Reassurance, and Cooperation,” 325–57; Tang, A Theory of Security Strategies for Our Time: Defensive Realism, 153.
102.
Kydd, “Trust, Reassurance, and Cooperation,” 325–57.
103.
Wheeler and Bluth in Baylis and Rengger, Dilemmas of World Politics: International Issues in a Changing World, 54.

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University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Klaus Heinrich Raditio

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Raditio, K.H. (2019). Theoretical Framework: Security Dilemma Reconsidered. In: Understanding China’s Behaviour in the South China Sea. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1283-0_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1283-0_2
Published: 26 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1282-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-1283-0
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