Abstract
While the unipolar power may be unduly complacent in a world of defensive advantage, its actions move to the other extreme if it perceives offensive advantage. If other actors can easily damage its power, then it must act forcefully to stop that threat. If it can use its own power cheaply, then the unipolar power is likely to engage in frequent conflict, wars it expects to win quickly and easily. This chapter completes our theory of international politics in a unipolar era by developing and evaluating a hypothesis of unipolar behavior during times of mutual offensive advantage.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Chapter 8
Stephen Van Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War,” International Security 22 (Spring 1998): 16–21.
Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 Gone 1978): 189.
John J. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001), 114–8.
Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2004), 172.
William C. Thompson, One Year Later: The Fiscal Impact of 9/11 on New York City (New York: City of New York, 2002), 1.
For further discussion, see Richard K. Betts, “The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy: Tactical Advantages of Terror,” Political Science Quarterly 117 (Spring 2002): 19–36.
Randall Schweller, “Domestic Structure and Preventive War,: Are Democracies More Pacific?” World Politics 44 (January 1992): 264–7.
For an in-depth look at the change in American security strategy, and its ramifications, see Betty Glad and Chris J. Dolan, eds., Striking First: The Preventive War Doctrine and the Reshaping of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave, 2004).
Christopher Layne, “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” Washington Quarterly 25 (Spring 2002): 182.
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, “‘Realists’ Are Not Alone in Opposing War with Iraq,” Chronicle of Higher Education (15 Nov 2002).
Mearsheimer and Walt, “An Unnecessary War,” Foreign Policy (January-February 2003): 51–9.
Dominique Moisi, “Iraq,” in Transatlantic Tensions: The United States, Europe, and Problem Countries ed. Richard N. Haass (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 134–6; Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam 60–78.
Copyright information
© 2007 Thomas S. Mowle, David H. Sacko
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mowle, T.S., Sacko, D.H. (2007). Offensive Advantage in a Unipolar System. In: The Unipolar World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603073_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603073_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-53198-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-60307-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)