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Enrique J Cordero
Prof. Rick Levitt
International Relations in The Post Cold War Era
Mid-term Written Assignment
November 4, 2013
What, Why, How... and Everything in Between
Drawing from the context of 18 years of domestic and international business
experience, 39 years of Colombian-American sociocultural influence, and a high
level understanding of the world politics and international relations, my humble
attempt in this paper is first to provide a comparative perspective between
Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism theory and Keohane & Nye’s Complex
Interdependence theory (or “thought experiment” as they call it (p. 269)), and then,
to present a pragmatic application of the two schools of thought into the events of
the Arab Spring.
Part I – Weaving Offensive Realism and Complex Interdependence
In comparing these two theories and understanding the fundamental contradictions
between their basic arguments with the intention of highlighting their opposite
perspectives, I found myself arriving at the conclusion that as instruments of policy
prescription they are in fact strategically similar but tactically different. In other
words, from the perspective of a political theory user, both Offensive Realism and
Complex Interdependence formulate a similar strategic what-why prescription: to
render military conflict irrelevant in pursue of self interest goals; but the tactics, or

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the how, to execute such a prescription are fundamentally different: through
hegemony by accumulation of all possibly attainable military power (Offensive
Realism)1, versus cooperation among states through the use of an interconnected
interdependent network of international actors with soft power tools such as
economics (Complex Interdependence)2. I will focus my analysis on the aspect of
similarity, meaning their common strategic what-why constructs, as I find it more
interesting (and somewhat provocative) to illustrate how these two theories, that in
all their rhetoric claim to be so opposite from each other, are in essence strikingly
similar. I chose not to discuss their tactical differences because there are volumes of
literature dedicated to this endeavor with far more prowess that I could exhibit in
just a few pages; besides, it is a discussion that inexorably will lead to the same
conclusion: they are tactically different in form, format and delivery.
The Offensive Realism theory has at its core a two-legged strategic baseline with
hegemony as the what, and fear of survival of the state as the why.3 However, from
a strategic perspective and to support my analysis, I content that the formulation of
these two elements (what and why) needs to be slightly repositioned. This rationale
obeys to the fact that for hegemony to be the what, or the ultimate strategic goal,
once achieved, it will have to satisfy the fundamental need, or the why, which in
this case is the fear of survival of the state. Nevertheless, history confirms that
obtaining hegemonic power does not guarantee the state’s survival even if that
status is assured for a long period of time. This is what occurred to the Soviet
Union, which after being a regional hegemon for four decades (1949 – 1989) finally

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succumbed due to an ill conceived economic policy. So, what does hegemony really
achieves? According to Mearsheimer “A hegemon is a state that is so powerful that
[…] no other state has the military wherewithal to pup up a serious fight against
it”4, so hegemony eliminates the possibility of military conflict in the system (global
or regional). Therefore, in Offensive Realism hegemony is certainly an important
part of the how as stated previously, but the ultimate strategic goal, or the what, is
to render military conflict irrelevant. Now lets consider Keohane & Nye’s theory.
The Complex Interdependence theory also presents a dual what-why strategic
foundation; however, not as explicit as Mearsheimer’s. Keohane & Nye describe the
goal, or the what, as a complex multifaceted set of issues driven by the individual
goals of transnational actors, and the why as the absence of hierarchy among issues,
in other words, the constant presence of conflicting agendas between those actors5.
Like in the case of Offensive Realism, there is no correlation between this what-why
construct as stated, because achieving this tapestry of goals from multiple
transnational actors will not directly solve for the conflicting agendas issue.
Therefore, it is necessary to reposition them for the purpose of the comparative
analysis. In this case I will assume that the stated what is part of the stated why
which can be rephrased in one single why as: the pursue of multiple conflicting
interests from an interdependent network of transnational actors. So what about
the what? Another fundamental element of the theory, in this case, the
minimization of the role of military force6 as the premise for allowing other goals
such as economical and ecological welfare to take center stage7, is certainly a more

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plausible statement of the what. In fact, Keohane & Nye spend a great deal of effort
in their discourse demonstrating the counterproductive use of military force even
for powerful states with hegemonic status8. Therefore, Complex Interdependence
seeks to minimize the importance of military conflict and the use of military power
as a policy tool, in order to facilitate the pursue of a tapestry of goals from an
interdependent network of transnational actors. In Keohane & Nye’s own words,
“the negligible role of force leads us to expect states to rely more on other
instruments in order to wield power”9. In conclusion Complex Interdependence
offers the same strategic what as Offensive Realism: to render military conflict
irrelevant.
In terms of the strategic why both theories follow the same pattern and that is to
pursue self-interest goals (or an amalgamation of them in the case of Complex
Interdependence) driven by primal human needs. Even though Mearsheimer
promptly discounts Morgenthau’s theory that states are lead by human beings who
have a will to power, hence their power seeking intentions are driven by their
human nature10; Offensive Realism states that the main motivation of power
seeking states is fear for survival which is in line with the physiological needs
principle in Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs.11 Along the same lines, Complex
Interdependence attributes the behavior of states to a desire for fulfilling goals such
as economic and ecological welfare, which in the context of Maslow’s pyramid can be
classified as both physiological and safety needs.

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With this simple comparative analysis I have submitted that despite their attempts
for describing each other as opposite sides of the political theory spectrum,
Offensive Realism and Complex Interdependence have strategic prescriptive
similarities that bring them closer together as exhibit in the table below.
Offensive Realism Complex Interdependence
What
To eliminate the possibility of
military conflict in the system
hence
To render military conflict
irrelevant
To minimize the importance of military
conflict and the use of military power as a
policy tool
hence
To render military conflict irrelevant
Why
Pursue of self-interest goals:
survival of the state
Pursue of self-interest goals: tapestry of
goals from an interdependent network of
transnational actors
How
Through hegemony by
accumulation of all possibly
attainable military power
Through cooperation among states via the
use of an interdependent network of
international actors with soft power tools
such as economics
Part II – Pragmatic application of Offensive Realism and Complex Interdependence
into the events of the Arab Spring
First, I would like to present some context using a piece of Spanish American
history. In July 19th, 1810, a group of middle-class, underrepresented, educated
“criollos” (those of Spanish descent born in the Americas rather than in Spain)
gathered at the Astronomical Observatory in Santa Fe de Bogota to devise a plan
to provoke a limited and temporary public disturbance which could then give
rise to an overall feeling of public discontent with the Royalists of Spain.
Their hope was to then take control away from the Spanish. In the morning
of July 20th (Market day) a group of “criollos”, went to Don José González
Llorente´s home (Llorente was a wealthy Spaniard businessman) on the
pretext of borrowing a flower vase for a dinner that was to honor the Royal

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Commissioner Antonio Villavicencio (Villavicencio was a well-known patriot
sympathizer). According to some accounts Llorente refused to lend the vase
with a haughty attitude, something that Llorente categorically denied. The
“criollos” took the vase and broke it to provoke Llorente and thus raised
tempers of the people against the Spanish. Meanwhile, Joaquín Camacho, a
“criollo”, went to the Viceregal palace and requested an open council to
debate a response on an application for the establishment of a governing
board in Santa Fe. The petition for an open town meeting regarding
independence was predictably denied. The people of Bogota then took to the
streets to protest Spanish arrogance12
and what follow was a series of events that lead to the Colombian declaration of
independence. There was no self-immolation in this portion of Spanish America
independence history, but what happened with Bouazizi in Tunisia could be
construed as the “Llorente’s vase incident” in the Arab Spring.
At first glance one has to resist the temptation to swiftly point at Complex
Interdependence as the most appropriate theory to explain the events that started
in Tunisia back in December of 2010 unleashing a wave of “change” in the Arab
World, with repercussions that extend as recent as September of this year with the
events that transpired in Syria. As Keohane & Nye’s argue: “After establishing the
differences between realism and complex interdependence, we shall argue that
complex interdependence sometimes comes closer to reality than does realism.”13
However, once we consider the geopolitical context of the events both, Offensive
Realism and Complex Interdependence, have a say in the matter. It is necessary to
use both approaches, Offensive Realism to explain the exogenous circumstances

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that surrounded the events, and Complex Interdependence to explain the events
themselves from an indigenous perspective.
From an exogenous point of view I will concentrate on the role that the US has (or
hasn’t, as will argue later) played as a hegemon power using the precepts found in
Offensive Realism. To this end we have to look first at several major events that
took place in the region in 2010 previous to the eruption of protests and
authoritarian fallouts in Tunisia and Egypt, and they are: the winding down of the
US engagement in the Iraq war, the escalation of US military presence in
Afghanistan, and the Wikileaks debacle in July of the same year (which exposed the
strained relations between the US and Pakistan).14 Therefore, it can be argued that
the combination of these three elements with direct consequences to the US ability
to “control” and effectively execute its foreign policy and agenda in the Middle East,
put enough pressure in the system, that the riots and chaos unraveled in the Arab
countries (catalyzed by Bouazizi’s act) was a welcomed “unintended” consequence.
One of Mearsheimer’s strategies for gaining (or otherwise sustaining) power is
bloodletting, which consists of making sure that any conflict between one’s rivals
turns into a long and costly endeavor that reduces their strength, while one stays
out of the fighting.15 In this strategy the objective of the non-directly-engaged party
is that once the dust settles (quite literally), its power will increase or at least stay
the same as the power of the two-engaged parties decreases. In this scenario the US
is acting as the party sitting on the sidelines while the different parties involved in
the Arab conflict (united citizens acting as states vs. authoritarian regimes) engage

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each other in a prolonged debilitating process. In the words of Vice President Biden
on an interview with Newshour in January of 2011 answering to the question of
what should the role of the US be in the Egypt conflict: “I think [the US] should
encourage [the people of Egypt and its government] to talk and try to resolve their
differences peacefully and amicably”16, not much action here. This strategy of
inaction has helped the US in refocusing the international community’s attention
from Iraq, Afghanistan and Wikileaks to the ongoing events in the Arab awakening,
while at the same time making strides on important targets like Osama bin Laden
(May, 2011). As the events continue to evolve the role of the US was still a very
passive one until the inaction strategy was almost compromised when the Assad
Syrian regime decided to use chemical weapons against its own people. Fortunately
the US was able to pulled its diplomatic capital and exert its influence over Russia
to diffuse the situation and keep its neutral position in the conflict.
Now, from and indigenous perspective we look to Keohane & Nye’s Complex
Interdependence theory to shed some light into the events that very quickly
expanded across borders in the Arab world motivating its citizens to revel against
its authoritarian regimes. At this point I would like to go back to the passage of
Spanish American history I related before and point out that, like the “criollos” who
initiated a process of independence in Colombia and other countries in South
America, the Arab people that have orchestrated and driven the Arab Spring are
politically underrepresented, young, middle-class, educated people with a lot of time
in their hands (meaning unemployed). This is important to recognize because of two

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fundamental dimensions in the Complex Interdependence theory, sensitivity and
vulnerability. As it is point out by the discourse
Sensitivity interdependence can be social or political as well as economic. For
example, there are social “contagion effects,” such as the trivial but rapid
spread of the fad of “streaking” from American to Europeans society in 1974,
or more significant, the way in which the development of radical student
movements during the late 1960s was reinforced by knowledge of each other’s
activities. The rapid growth of transnational communications has enhanced
such sensitivity… Sensitivity to such an issue may be reflected in
demonstrations or other political action, even if no action is taken to alleviate
the distress (and no economic sensitivity thereby results).17
This is particularly true for the profile of the Arab people who are the main drivers
in the movements across the region. In 1810, “criollos” were energized and
encourage by the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, “criollos” like Camilo Torres
who drafted the “Memorial of Grievances”, a document that later became
foundational for the liberation movement that extended across Spanish America,
[There are no] other means to consolidate the union between America and
Spain [but] the just and competent representation of [the American] people,
without any difference among its subjects that they do not have because of
their laws, their customs, their origins, and their rights. Equality! The sacred
right of equality.18
In essence, not very much different from the claims we have heard from the voices
protesting on the streets of Cairo and Tunisia. Therefore, sensitivity explains the
motivation and the speed with which the sentiment of the people in Tunisia
reverberated and transferred across to Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya,

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Syria and more to come. Complementary, the vulnerability dimension will help
provide an explanation for the level of impact that each individual movement
generated not only on its own regime, but in the one that followed as well.
Vulnerability can be defined as an actor’s liability to suffer costs imposed by
external events even after policies have been altered. Since it is usually
difficult to change policies quickly, immediate effects of external changes
generally reflect sensitivity dependence. Vulnerability dependence can be
measured only by the costliness of making effective adjustments to a changed
environment over a period of time.19
In other words, through the lens of Complex Interdependence, the succession of
events in the Arab Spring are not isolated but a consequence of each other with
varying degrees of cost in each case, but highly vulnerable nevertheless. And this
last element is the one that precipitated the rapid spread of the movement, as it has
been argued by Keohane and Nye,
sensitivity interdependence will be less important than vulnerability
interdependence in providing power resources to actors…
Vulnerability
interdependence includes the strategic dimension that sensitivity
interdependence omits, but this does not mean that sensitivity is politically
unimportant. Rapidly rising sensitivity often leads to complaints about
interdependence and political efforts to alter it, particularly in countries with
pluralistic political systems.20
Arab regimes have been unable to cope with the high level of sensitivity and the
rapid transmission of people’s sentiment enabled by the power of social media and
the Internet.21

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Now, it is worth considering the risks of this vulnerability manipulation, especially
when the actors are regimes with the ability to draw from their military force and
use it against its own citizens.
Even effective manipulation of asymmetrical interdependence within a
nonmilitary area can create risks of military counteraction.22
This is the case of Syria, which has escalated its use of military force to the point of
using chemical weapons against the opposition in high disregard for any exogenous
consequences, and flying in the face of the Responsibility to Protect initiative.
In summary, I have established that Offensive Realism and Complex
Interdependence are not two extreme poles of the political theory spectrum, but
rather two sides of the same coin that can be used to pay for the political
prescription bus ride. I have also attempted to describe the events of the Arab
Spring from an exogenous perspective using the bloodletting precept in Offensive
Realism against the hegemonic role played by the US, and from a indigenous
perspective to explain the motivation, speed and costliness of the movements across
the Arab world using the sensitivity and vulnerability dimensions of Complex
Interdependence. In the end, the story continues and only history will prove these
assessments accurate or inaccurate.

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REFERENCES
1 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W.
2 Robert Keohane & Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence, Fourth Edition
(Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown & Co., 1977), p. 20-21.
3 Ditto as reference 1, p. 32.
4 Ditto as reference 1, p. 47.
5 Ditto as reference 2, p. 31.
6
Ditto as reference 2, p. 22.
7
Ditto as reference 2, p. 23.
8
Ditto as reference 2, p. 35 – 39.
9
Ditto as reference 2, p. 26.
10 Ditto as reference 1, p. 58.
11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florero_de_Llorente
13
Ditto as reference 2, p. 19.
14
Matthias
Gebauer;
John
Goetz,
"Explosive
Leaks
Provide
Image
of
War
from
Those
Fighting
It:
The
Secret
Enemy
in
Pakistan"
(Der
Spiegel,
25
July
2010).
15
Ditto as reference 1, p. 130.
16
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-­‐june11/biden_01-­‐27.html
17
Ditto as reference 2, p. 11.
18
Ditto as reference 12
19
Ditto as reference 17
20
Ditto as reference 2, p. 13 – 14.
21
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-­‐june11/egypt2_02-­‐14.html
22
Ditto as reference 2, p. 14