Abstract

Great powers overextend their security apparatus attempting to maintain an international system from which they benefit. Costly expenditures of internally mobilized hard power in irregular wars increases the the decline of relative power while externally mobilized power in the form of partisans may delay or defeat power transition. This paper examines the U. S. war in Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan in order to determine if long periods of irregular war had an effect on those state’s relative position in the internaitonal system. This paper will demonstrate that those wars eroded each position without the large, structural war predicted by normative IR theory.

Highlights

  • Given the propensity towards conflict in history, realists have been arguably correct that great powers will always exercise and resist influence in an attempt to increase their own security

  • The choice to engage in internal mobilization, i.e., employing large expensive, conventional forces, or mobilizing external forces has an effect on the political economy of the great power state

  • A dominant power attempted to increase its relative position in the international system by supporting a hierarchical client state in a regional war

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Summary

Introduction

Given the propensity towards conflict in history, realists have been arguably correct that great powers will always exercise and resist influence in an attempt to increase their own security. IR theory has largely focused on these war and power to explain changes in the system These so called “structural wars” involving great powers have been the subject of the most important international relations literature [1]. Using the Correlates of War (COW) data, the Composite Indicator of National Capabilities (CINC), one can graph the rise and fall of the dominant powers (figure 1) [2] Decisions by states to pursue strategies of external power mobilization can effectively improve the position of the state in the international system This subject has become very important in the twenty-first century as a myriad of conflicts in all forms affect the security and power projection ability of states with irregular conflict being the most pervasive. Reynolds: Long Wars: Demonstrating the Corrosive Effects of Irregular Wars on Dominant States

Hypothesis
The State Problem
Case Studies
The Soviet Union in Afghanistan
Conclusions
Findings
Implications
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