Abstract
Modernisation and militarisation are closely associated. Militarisation responds to the imperatives arising from the global modernising process begun five centuries ago with the rise of the territorial state and with the destruction of the European feudalism and its gradual replacement by capitalist-based economy.1 To establish this association — and the direct and indirect causal connection between them — the discussion below first defines the principal characteristics of modernisation as a global process of socio-economic change and political transformation and defines militarisation in terms that can be linked to key characteristics of modernisation. Some of the implications of this argument for global arms control accords are subsequently outlined in the concluding section. Aims of modernisation will have to be redirected and the means used by the world community in this pursuit will have to be redefined if militarisation is to remain the servant, not master, of modernisation.
I should like to thank Andrew Ross for helpful criticism of this chapter.
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Notes and References
These beginning-points of modernisation are widely held in the scholarly community although there is a wide disparity of views about the causal relation between capitalism and the state. Marxists see the two phenomena as causally related, with capitalism as the motor force of the modern state. See Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System, I (New York: Academic Press, 1974) and The Modern World System II (New York: Academic Press, 1980). For a similar interpretation of contemporary international relations, consult
Kaldor, Mary and Eide, Ashborn (eds) The World Military Order (London: Macmillan, 1979). The classical statement is, of course,
of V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (New York: International Publishers, 1939). Other writers see the state arising from primordial concerns tied to personal and collective security. The territorial nation-state met those needs more satisfactorily than the feudal system.
See Herz, John H., The Nation-State and the Crisis of World Politics (New York: McKay, 1976). Herz’s theme of the conflict-prone character of the nation-state system is elaborated in
Waltz, Kenneth, A Theory of International Relations (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1979). One of the most penetrating rejoinders to the Marxist analysis of the state remains
Schumpeter, Joseph, Imperialism (New York: Meridian Books, 1955). This discussion treats the nation-state and capitalism as separate but interdependent instruments of modernisation responding to two fundamentally different, but universally experienced, human needs and demands: security and welfare to which the nation-state and capitalism are, respectively, provisional solutions.
De Tocqueville, Alexis, De la Démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Pagnerre, 1850) 2 vols;
Craig, Gordon A., The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945 (London: Clarendon Press, 1955).
Michael Howard briefly but brilliantly traces this success in his War in European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).
The notion of world community used here is drawn from Hedley Bull’s essay ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’, in Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin (eds) Diplomatic Investigations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966) pp. 35–50; see also his ‘War and International Order’, in James, Alan (ed.) The Bases of International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973) pp. 116–32. Bull’s notion of the world community, when compared with the political arrangements within a nation-state, implies an imperfect global system composed of rival nation-states which share a common, if weakly defined and fragilely maintained, interest in the preservation and extension of a world order.
Huntingdon, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) p. 32, partially quoting
Robert Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961) pp. 85–6.
Schelling, Thomas C., The Strategy of Conflict (New York: Galaxy Books, 1963) and Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).
Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, translated by Graham, J. J. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962) vol. I, pp. 1–45.
Boulding, Kenneth, ‘Toward a Pure Theory of Threat Systems’, American Economic Review, LIII, no. 2 (May 1963) pp. 424–34.
Vagts, Alfred, A History of Militarism (New York: Meridian Books, 1959) 2nd edn, p. 14. This chapter seeks not only to associate militarisation and modernisation but also, as a secondary objective, to contribute to efforts aimed at establishing the conceptual and epistemological basis for the measurement of militarisation. Analysts should be able to narrow their differences over these measures without necessarily being obliged to agree on what might be considered, viewed from divergent valuational systems and priorities, appropriate and justifiable levels of militarisation for a particular nation-state or for the global system.
See note 5, Huntington and Apter, David, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).
For an exception see, Morse, Edward, Modernization and the Transformation of International Politics (New York: Free Press, 1976). Dependency theorists are also concerned about the impact of the international system on internal modernisation, but they narrow their focus to effects of capitalist economic practices on development rather than on the global system, including the nation-state and multinational corporations as independent actors. Representative of this school are the views of
Cockcroft, James D., Frank, André Gunder and Johnson, Dale L., in Dependency and Underdevelopment (New York: Doubleday, 1972). For an alternative view consult
Gilpin, Robert, The Multinational Corporation and the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).
Following traditional realist thinking, Raymond Aron defines international relations precisely in terms of this characteristic. Aron, Raymond, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, translated by Howard, Richard and Fox, Annette Baker (New York: Doubleday, 1966).
An exception is Wallensteen, Peter, Galtung, Johan, and Portales, Carlos (eds), Global Militarization (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1985). While the discussion focuses on militarisation, it is compatible with the meaning of modernisation used in this analysis.
US, Arms Control and Disarmament Association, Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1985 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985), p. 4.
See Kolodziej, Edward A., French International Policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur (Ithaca: Cornell Univesity Press, 1974).
Neuman, Stephanie, G., ‘International Stratification and Third World Military Industries’, International Organization XXXVIII, no. 1 (Winter 1984), pp. 172–3.
Ibid, p. 178. See also Neuman’s ‘Third World Arms Production and the Global Arms Transfer, System’, in Katz, Everett James (ed.), Arms Production in Developing Countries (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1984) pp. 15–38.
For these definitions, see Ross, Andrew L., Arms Production in Developing Countries: The Continuing Proliferation of Conventional Weapons, no. N-1615-AF, Rand Corporation Note (Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation 1981) pp. 16–19.
For example, examine Klare, Michael T., American Arms Supermarket (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984);
Pearson, Frederic S., ‘Of Leopards and Cheetahs: West Germany’s Role as a Mid-Sized Arms Supplier’, Orbis, XXVIX, no. 1 (Spring 1985) pp. 165–82;
Freedman, Lawrence, Arms Production in the United Kingdom: Problems and Prospects (London: Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1978);
and Kolodziej, Making and Marketing of Arms: The French Experience and its Implications for the International System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
For India, see Subrahmanyam, K., Defence and Development (Calcutta: Minerva 1973) and
Thomas, Raju, The Defence of India: A Budgetary Perspective of Strategy and Politics (Columbia, Missouri: South Asia Books, 1978).
For Israel, see Klieman, Aaron S., Israels Global Reach: Arms Sales as Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey, 1985);
and Mintz, Alex, ‘Military-Industrial Linkages in Israel’, Armed Forces and Society, XII, no. 1 (Fall 1988) pp. 9–28; and Harkavy, Robert E. and Neumann, Stephanie G. ‘Israel’, in Katz (see note 19) pp. 193–224.
Fro Brazil, see Myers, David, ‘Brazil’ in Kolodziej, Edward A. and Harkavy, Robert E., (eds) Security Politics of Developing Countries (Lexington, Lexington Books, 1982) pp. 53–72.
Brzoska, Michael and Ohlson, Thomas, Arms Production in the Third World (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985) chap. 1.
See also Ross, Andrew ‘World Order and Arms Production in the Third World’, in Katz, James E. (ed.) Sowing the Serpent’s Teeth: The Implications of Third World Military Industrialization (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1986).
Leitenberg, Milton and Ball, Nicole, The Structure of the Defence Industry (London: Croom Helm, 1983).
See McNeill, William H., The Pursuit of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982);
Pearton, Maurice, Diplomacy, War, and Technology Since 1830 (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1984); and Howard (see note 3).
Gilpin, Robert, France in the Age of the Scientific State (Princeton: Princeton Unversity Press, 1968).
See, for example, Kanet, Roger E. and Metzger, Clair A., ‘NATO-Warsaw Pact Rivalry in the Third World Arms Market’, in Clawson, Robert W. (ed.) East-West Rivalry in the Third World: Security Issues and Regional Perspectives (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1986) pp. 133–48.
Moskos, Charles C, ‘Race and the Military’, Armed Forces and Society, VI, no. 4 (Summer, 1980) pp. 587–94.
See Nordlinger, Eric, Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Governments (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hill, 1977) for an evaluation of the mixed contribution of military regimes to economic development.
This is the argument of Mehta, Jagat S. (ed.) Third World Militarization: A Challenge to Third World Diplomacy (Austin, Texas: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, 1985).
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Kolodziej, E.A. (1987). Whither Modernisation and Militarisation? Implications for International Security and Arms Control. In: Schmidt, C., Blackaby, F. (eds) Peace, Defence and Economic Analysis. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18898-7_10
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