When Right Makes Might a Volume in the Series

When Right Makes Might a volume in the series Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu. When Right Makes Might Rising Powers and World Order Stacie E. Goddard Cornell University Press Ithaca and London Copyright © 2018 by Cornell University The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2018 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Goddard, Stacie E., 1974– author. Title: When right makes might : rising powers and world order / Stacie Goddard. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2018. | Series: Cornell studies in security affairs | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018013753 (print) | LCCN 2018017539 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501730313 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501730320 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501730306 | ISBN 9781501730306 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Great powers—History—19th century. | Great powers—History—20th century. | Middle powers—History— 19th century. | Middle powers—History—20th century. | World politics—19th century. | World politics—20th century. | International relations—Case studies. Classification: LCC JZ1310 (ebook) | LCC JZ1310. G73 2018 print) | DDC 327.1/1209034—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013753 Cover image: iStock.com/carlofornitano To Sophie and Stella Contents List of Tables ix Acknowledgments xi 1. The Great Powers’ Dilemma: Uncertainty, Intentions, and Rising Power Politics 1 2. The Politics of Legitimacy: How a Rising Power’s Right Makes Might 16 3. America’s Ambiguous Ambition: Britain and the Accommodation of the United States, 1817–23 47 4. Prussia’s Rule-Bound Revolution: Europe and the Destruction of the Balance of Power, 1863–64 84 5. Germany’s Rhetorical Rage: Britain and the Abandonment of Appeasement, 1938–39 118 6. Japan’s Folly: The Conquest of Manchuria, 1931–33 149 Conclusion: Legitimacy, Power, and Strategy in World Politics 183 Notes 199 Index 235 vii Tables 1. Four worlds of rising power legitimation and great power strategies 36 2. Rising powers and great power strategies, 1815–2017 42 3. Placing the cases 43 4. European responses to Prussia’s rise, 1863–64 87 ix Acknowledgments This book looks at the ways actors attribute meaning to events, and like the events discussed in the book, the meaning of this study emerged from a lot of talk, conversations with colleagues and friends in which I attempted to jus- tify my interest in nineteenth-century Prussia. I owe a huge debt to Lynn Eden for advice on turning my initial thoughts about this case into a full- blown book, and I was fortunate that Dan Nexon and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson invited me to present my work on Prussia at a forum on “realism- constructivism” at the Mershon Institute at The Ohio State University. After getting initial, incredibly insightful, and always skeptical input from participants in the workshop, I was hooked on a project about legitimacy and rising powers. I’m particularly thankful to Jennifer Mitzen, Randy Schweller, Bill Wohlforth, and Alex Wendt for pushing me on the project. While writing the book, I had several opportunities to present chapters, and I am grateful for participants in workshops at the University of Chi- cago, George Washington University, MIT, Harvard University, Univer- sity of Washington, Princeton University, and UCLA. Thanks especially to Charlie Glaser, Alex Downes, John Mearsheimer, Jon Mercer, Barry Po- sen, Elizabeth Saunders, Art Stein, Rob Trager, and Keren Yarhi-Milo for pushing me to think more deeply about my arguments. I cannot begin to name the debts I owe to all of the participants; the comments I received were invaluable. I was also fortunate to participate in the Lone Star National Security Forum in 2016, where participants gave me their close read of several chapters. I’m particularly grateful to Josh Rovner for the invitation and to Steven Lobell for the careful and thoughtful reading of my manuscript. xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book was written while I was an assistant professor and then associate professor at Wellesley College, and I am grateful for the support I’ve received from colleagues and students. I thank Jane Bishop for the research support I received as the Jane Bishop ’51 Associate Professor of Political Sci- ence. I had invaluable research assistance from students, including Marsin Alshamary, Ken dall Bianchi, Tiffany Chung, Charlotte Hulme, Poe Oo, and Judy Yao. And for years I’ve subjected my undergraduate seminar to my thoughts on rising powers, and I thank them for continuing to humor me. Julia Munemo provided outstanding editing in the final stages of the book. I had a wonderful experience with Roger Haydon and all of the editors at Cornell University Press. I am hoping that the external reviewer of this book is reading these acknowledgments and understands all of the differ- ence his or her thoughtful and constructive comments made in revising the book. That reviewer did more than what the job demands, for which I offer my thanks. Earlier versions of this work were published in International Se- curity and Security Studies. I thank those journals for giving me permission to use the material here, and the reviewers and editors who helped make my arguments better, especially Kelly Greenhill, who shepherded my empirical discussion of Hitler’s Germany through the process. For providing me with the time to develop my argument and cases, I am also grateful to the Smith Richardson Foundation for financial support. I am especially thankful for the colleagues and friends who read the en- tire manuscript, sometimes multiple times. Bob Jervis and Jack Snyder must have thought they had gotten rid of me after graduate school, yet they proved willing, once again, to read their advisee’s manuscript and give comments that were integral to the revisions of the book. The further I get into this career, the more I can see the imprint of my mentors, and I am thankful for it. Joe Parent gave me the blunt talking to I needed after the first full draft, and this is my chance to tell him that he was right. Dan Nexon doesn’t think he read a draft, but without his conversations and work on what he thought was a “side” project, my own work never would have gelled. Fiona Adamson housed me while I dug away at the ar - chives, and then even put up with me working out my empirical narratives out loud at her house. And then there is Ron Krebs, who has been my con- stant intellectual companion since our first days in graduate school. He read the manuscript and, when I just wanted the damn thing off my desk, told me to make it better. During the course of writing this book, I lost two important role models. I was lucky enough to take a seminar from Ken Waltz as a graduate stu- dent, and it was conversations with him that helped me bridge the “realist- constructivist” gap in my own mind. In 2013, I lost my dear friend, Warner Schilling. While at Columbia, Warner taught a class on American foreign policy, which traced the rise of the United States from vulnerable nation to xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS great power. It was Warner who put in my head that the rise of the United States was not inevitable, that all of the European powers were in a position to undercut the upstart revolutionary. Warner’s classes, rich with detail and narrative, his ability to point out puzzles, and his uncompromising ap- proach to scholarship sat with me every day as I wrote this book. I wish he were here to read it. There is also the support that comes outside the academic world. I owe much to the teachers and staff at the Wellesley Community Children’s Cen- ter, particularly my girls’ “primary” teachers—Karen, Patti, Brad, Cindy, and Marlene. I would not have been able to work on his book if you had not given such care to my girls. My sister and her family, my father and my mother, all provided support and good humor throughout (although I could have done without the “you’re still working on that?”). A special thank you to my mother-in-law for holding my newborn daughter while I finished up a chapter on a deadline. My biggest debt, of course, is to my family. Paul MacDonald read this manuscript more times than I want to count and yet somehow managed to play the role of both a critical colleague and a supportive husband. It is to my daughters, Sophie and Stella, that I want to express my greatest thanks. Without you, I’m pretty sure I would have finished this book three or four years ago. My life, however, would have been poorer for it. xiii When Right Makes Might chapter 1 The Great Powers’ Dilemma Uncertainty, Intentions, and Rising Power Politics Why do great powers accommodate, even facilitate, the rise of some chal- lengers, while others are contained or confronted, even at the risk of war? What explains a great power’s strategic response to rising powers in the international system? The conventional wisdom suggests that a great power’s response to a rising power rests on how it perceives the challenger’s intentions.1 When a rising power has limited aims, it is unlikely to pose a threat.

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