World Wars, Global Wars, and the Cool Hand Luke Syndrome: A Reply to Chase-Dunn and Sokolovsky

Abstract

Journal exchanges can assume a number of forms ranging from vituperative and ill-tempered accusations and counter-accusations to the more constructive give and take of different information bases, theoretical insights, and perspectives. We have clearly avoided the former pole in this exchange an outcome which I do not find surprising given the identity of my 'adversaries' but I am not sure to what extent we have managed to approach the more rewarding latter pole. Indeed, it may be that we are simply talking past one another rather than actually exchanging anything. I am quite sure my own comments are in need of further elaboration, but instead of pursuing that end at this time I would rather speculate briefly on why we seem to be engaging in what might be termed the 'Cool Hand Luke' syndromethat is, failing to communicate. The easiest explanation is that we have nothing to communicate other than prodding for clarification. I doubt that this is the case. We do agree, as Chase-Dunn and Sokolovsky note, that stability and systemic change must be understood historically and that the periodic emergence of a preponderant economic, political and military power is a crucial fulcrum in developing an historical explanation and understanding of world-system dynamics. These mutually shared premises are not yet all that popularly accepted. As an analytical minority, we therefore need to monitor what different schools of world-system thought are producing-especially in an embryonic phase of theory construction. For example, some of the global war observations that I have advanced did not spring full blown from existing long cycle theory. Rather, they emerged from the process of trying to pin down what bothered me about Chase-Dunn's (1981) treatment of systemic warfare. Chase-Dunn's article was therefore instrumental in nudging me into trying to improve my own understanding of global wars. A more promising explanation of our failure to communicate involves an appreciation of our somewhat different priorities. Global wars are far more important to the long cycle framework than wars in general are to the world economy school of thought. This difference stems from basic differences in the two alternative approaches to explaining the development of the world system. The world economy framework focuses on capitalism and capital accumulation as the fundamental motors of systemic change. Other processes and events, as a consequence, tend to be relegated to subordinate, less central concerns. In the case of war, Chase-Dunn and Sokolovsky now emphasize that 'world wars' perform several functions for the system: the struggle for control or dominance, the facilitation of mobility and the development of new structures of power,