Spirals of Suspicion
COLBURN, FORREST D.
Spirals of Suspicion Revolution and War By Stephen M. Walt Cornell. 365pp. $35.00. Reviewed by Forrest D. Colburn Visiting Associate Professor. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and...
...It also demonstrates that novel ways of organizing society are possible, intoxicating revolutionaries and their foreign sympathizers, inducing panic in the many who fear radical upheaval, and making war seem at once necessary and attractive...
...What seems to be missing from Walt's otherwise impressive work is a theoretical and empirical assessment of how the international context intensifies or diminishes the web of threats and misunderstandings he details...
...though, that appears to be most explosive...
...Another chapter then offers briefer discussions of the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese cases...
...That prompts me to wonder whether Walt's neat explanation of the relationship between revolution and war is incomplete...
...A second source of uncertainty in the aftermath of virtually every revolution is the central question of whether (or how easily and through whom) it will spread...
...rather, the structural exigencies were volatile—and only laboriously defused...
...But ideology is a risky substitute for knowledge...
...Abroad, exiles are one of the most common sources of "information" about the direction of a revolution...
...Stephen Walt"s learned study is particularly valuable for addressing the important gap in our understanding of the relationship between revolution and war...
...But Marxism-Leninism was not only especially ambitious in promising revolutionaries they could remake their societies...
...Diplomatic representatives are often withdrawn or replaced, intelligence networks are disrupted, scholarly exchanges are suspended, and the freedom of journalists is circumscribed...
...Walt convincingly suggests, too, that the chance of war breaking out is heightened by uncertainty...
...The chapter on the Russian Revolution begins with an epigram from Leon Trotsky as commissar for foreign affairs in 1917: "I shall issue some revolutionary proclamations to the peoples and then close up shop...
...Certainly the stark contrast between Angola two decades ago and Liberia today appears to reside more in the shifting of the international context than in anything else...
...In much the same fashion revolutionary sympathizers flock to the new regime...
...In the face of a political landscape that has undergone dramatic change, it is harder for all concerned parties to accurately estimate one another's intentions...
...This legacy is understood now in Addis Ababa, Kabul, Phnom Penh, and Managua...
...Looking ahead, I think we will see decidedly fewer revolutions, and they will be less catastrophic...
...The uncertainties unleashed made accommodation elusive...
...Walt shows that the international tension accompanying the Russian Revolution —and the others he examines—cannot be traced to a single party...
...Every revolution has its counterrevolution...
...Consider the very different international responses to the recent carnage in Liberia and to the 1975 ouster of the Portuguese from Angola...
...No doubt every revolutionary ideology imparts a certain headiness to the victors...
...Princeton University: author, "The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries " ACADEMIC TRADITION separates revolution and war...
...His conclusion, therefore, is that we are unlikely to enjoy the tranquillity of a world without violent revolutions and the wars they so frequently lead to...
...In Liberia a bloody conflict provoked an airlift of foreigners and protests from neighboring countries that they could not absorb refugees...
...This is important to both sides, but neither one can form a reliable answer...
...And those who study war do not attempt to explain revolutions...
...Walt's bald argument is that revolution in a state causes war by producing murky yet credible threats to rivals: It brings sudden shifts in the balance of power, alters the pattern of international alignments, casts doubt on existing agreements and diplomatic norms, and provides a tempting (albeit often misleading) opportunity for other states to improve their position...
...The problem in both cases is partly the breakdown of normal channels of communication among states at precisely the moment when there is the greatest need for accurate information...
...In 1996 they could not have such an ideology, or any other way of eliciting the kind of support that drowned Angola in weaponry, military advisers, foreign troops, and—in the end—a savage civil war that cost half a million Angolans their lives...
...All revolutions that took place between 1917 and the demise of Marxism-Leninism in 1989 differed from those preceding the Russian Revolution...
...Those who study revolutions do not attempt to show why states wage war...
...To attract support they portray their countries as both hostile and ripe for revolution...
...The two traits are shared...
...The result is a worthy exploration of these two most important, and most dangerous, political events—and particularly of how revolution can lead to war...
...Those who theorize about history and politics have to incorporate the lessons painfully learned in these poor "backwaters...
...Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs...
...An inverse relationship is less obvious, but surely, for example, the Russian and Chinese revolutions, respectively, were facilitated by World War I and World War II...
...In these circumstances the revolutionary regime will usually rely on its ideology to predict the reception it can expect, while other nations will use the same ideology as a guide to the newcomer's probable conduct...
...The parallel migration of exiles and sympathizers is a feature of most revolutions, and it increases the danger that each side's perceptions and policies will be based on biased "evidence...
...In other words, both sides conclude the other represents a grave danger that can be eliminated fairly easily—and war ensues...
...Neither those clinging to power nor those determined to seize it had an ideology that made them de facto friends or foes of the most powerful countries in the world...
...Revolutionary regimes are convinced—often rightly—of hostility on the part of other nations, but are politically fortified by their victory and their ideology...
...Unfortunately, the scant details that do eventually surface tend merely to buttress ideological predispositions...
...It invites a second book: a treatment of the relationship between war and revolution...
...My immediate point is that we need to recognize the scar the Russian Revolution, and specifically Marxism-Lenin-ism, left on subsequent revolutions...
...Thus revolutions create "security dilemmas," exacerbated by what Walt aptly calls "spirals of suspicion...
...So they portray the new regime as a grave threat to other states and stress its potential vulnerability...
...It is the heady mixture of insecurity and overconf idence...
...Relatedly, as Liberia and Angola demonstrate, there are ideologies and then there is Marxism-Leninism...
...In some cases it may even determine whether political unrest takes the shape of a revolution or a violent implosion...
...They are eager to learn from its experiences, to express solidarity, and sometimes to seek assistance for their own struggles...
...Walt successfully sustains his argument in lengthy, well-researched individual studies of the French, Russian and Iranian revolutions...
...In his penultimate paragraph Walt writes, "Instead of a relatively stable world of well-ordered national states...
...Angered by their plight, they frequently try to obtain foreign assistance for their counterrevolutionary dreams...
...we may be entering a period of renewed ideological ferment and increased transnational turbulence...
...Rivals, usually neighbors, are convinced—again, often rightly—that revolutionary regimes pose a serious threat, but are inclined to believe that they are weak and a "window of opportunity" exists to snuff them out...
...Nevertheless, they are generally seen as experts on conditions in their native land (even years after their departure) when other sources of information are scarce...
...The book's final chapter takes up the question of the future of revolutions in the post-Cold War era...
...Stephen M. Walt, aprofessorof political science at the University of Chicago, defies that tradition in his sober, well-reasoned new book...
...it also afforded ties, however fragile, to one of the world's two most powerful international cliques...
...But that was easier said than done...
...In the revolutionary state, these political pilgrims are regarded as accurate reporters, despite their obvious interest in providing a distorted view...
...My more genera] point is that international context, difficult as it may be to conceptualize and to compare across historical epochs, plays a decisive role in the domestic and international outcomes of revolutions...
Vol. 79 • June 1996 • No. 3
