THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE At Cold War’s End: Complexity, Causes, and Counterfactuals Benjamin Mueller A thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. London, 1 October 2015 DECLARATION I certify that the thesis I present for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work, except where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out by any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 99,864 words. 2 ABSTRACT What caused the Cold War to end? In the following I examine the puzzle of the fast and peaceful conclusion of the bipolar superpower standoff, and point out the problems this creates for the study of International Relations (IR). I discuss prevailing explanations and point out their gaps, and offer the framework of complexity theory as a suitable complement to overcome the blind spots in IR’s reductionist methodologies. I argue that uncertainty and unpredictability are rooted in an international system that is best viewed as non-linear. My analysis of the end of the Cold War proceeds with counterfactual investigations of leaders’ foreign policy choices. This helps produce a more fine-grained understanding of the manifold, dense interactive causal effects that abound in the international arena. I find that various choices made by four key international leaders in the 1980s – Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush – contributed to the rapid and unexpected end of the Cold War in various ways. While such leadership effects need to be offset against the wider structural context within which politicians operate, it is mistaken to exclude individual leaders and their key associates from the study of IR. I conclude that deterministic analyses fail to account for the independent causal wellspring provided by reflexive, conscious human agency. Complexity theory and counterfactuals can help identify the scope and limits of leaders’ influence on international affairs. 3 TIMELINE OF EVENTS 1976 11 March The Soviet Union begins deploying modern SS-20 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles capable of targeting the capitals of Western Europe, sparking a new round of the arms race. 1977 28 October In London, West Germany’s Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt calls on NATO to undertake a massive programme of nuclear rearmament in response to the growing threat of the Soviet missile build-up. 1979 5 January The heads of state of the West’s ‘Big Four’ – Britain, France, Germany, and the United States – meet in Guadeloupe. Among other things, they decide that NATO should embark on theatre nuclear force modernisation to counter the SS-20 threat, whilst pursuing arms control negotiations with the Soviets in parallel. 18 June US President Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II accords in Vienna. The SALT II accords are never ratified. 12 December NATO takes its Double Track decision, offering the Warsaw Pact mutual limits on ballistic nuclear missile levels while simultaneously threatening to deploy new US Pershing-II warheads in Western Europe in the event no ceilings to missile levels are agreed. 24 December The Soviet Union deploys its 40th Army to Kabul, marking the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan War. The USSR will eventually withdraw its forces nine years later. 1980 20 January Among other measures such as trade sanctions, President Carter threatens a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics due to be held in in Moscow unless Soviet troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan. The US and 64 other countries eventually stay away from the Olympics. 4 4 November Ronald Reagan wins the US presidential election. Having accused Jimmy Carter of being “totally oblivious to the Soviet drive for world domination” during the campaign, Reagan begins to expand the US defence budget by 10%, year-on-year, until 1986. 1981 30 March 69 days into his Presidency, Reagan narrowly survives a deranged assassin’s gunfire outside the Washington Hilton. Reagan is hit in the torso; the bullet misses his heart by 25mm. 18 November Reagan proposes the Zero Option as the basis for arms negotiations with the Soviet Union: the US will not station new Pershing-II missiles in Europe if the USSR removes all its deployed intermediate-range nuclear missiles, including the SS-20s. Initially met with derision as an unrealistic goal, the Zero Option will become the basis for the Intermediate Nuclear Force treaty signed six years later. 13 December Poland’s leader General Jaruzelski announces a state of emergency and imposes martial law. Dozens of opposition activists are killed and thousands jailed. The crackdown permits the Warsaw Pact to call off plans to invade Poland to quell political unrest, an operation which had been in the offing since December 1980. 1982 9 May During a Commencement Address at Reagan’s alma mater, Eureka College, the US President announces his intention to kick-start nuclear arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union and expresses plans to meet with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev at the United Nations. Reagan sets out a standard for engagement with the USSR: “A Soviet leadership devoted to improving its people’s lives, rather than expanding its armed conquests, will find a sympathetic partner in the West. The West will respond with expanded trade and other forms of cooperation.” Nothing becomes of any of these initiatives. 5 July Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State, resigns after proving to be both an ineffective diplomat-in-chief and following repeated confrontations with other senior Administration members. Reagan chooses George Shultz, a business executive with a background in academia and government who advised Reagan on economic affairs during the presidential campaign, to replace Haig. 5 10 November Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, passes away. The Politburo votes to elect Yuri Andropov, who had previously run the Soviet intelligence service KGB for 15 years, as its new leader. 1983 15 February Ronald Reagan meets Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin in the White House, a secret meeting arranged by George Shultz. It is Reagan’s first business session with a Soviet official. 8 March In a widely covered speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, Reagan labels the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’. 23 March Ronald Reagan proposes the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a colossal research programme aimed at constructing a space-based defense system against ballistic nuclear missile attack. It is nicknamed ‘Star Wars’ by the press (the third instalment of George Lucas’ franchise is due for release in May). 1 September A Soviet fighter jet shoots down Korean Airliner Flight 007 close to the island of Sakhalin after the civilian airliner strays into Soviet airspace due to a navigational error. All 269 passenger and crew on board are killed. 2 November NATO begins Able Archer, a ten-day command post war game which includes simulated nuclear attacks. Some in the Soviet Politburo fear the exercise is a prelude to war; the USSR readies its nuclear forces and places air units in Poland and East Germany on alert. 15 December In West Germany, NATO deploys the first of its 572 new Pershing-II missiles. Despite an enormous effort by the USSR to scupper it, the Dual Track strategy of 1979 is thus implemented. George Shultz later deems this the crucial turning point that marked the beginning of the Cold War, demonstrating to the USSR firm Allied cohesion behind its strategy of collective security.1 1 Shultz (2007), xxiv 6 1984 16 January Ronald Reagan holds a nationally televised address during which he announces a strategy of engaging the USSR in a ‘serious’ dialogue seeking ‘areas of constructive cooperation.’ Reagan declares 1984 to be a ‘year of opportunities for peace’; domestic commentators wryly observe that it is also a year of presidential elections. The speech receives little attention abroad. 9 February Yuri Andropov passes away, and is replaced as General Secretary by Konstantin Chernenko, an ailing apparatchik. 8 May The USSR and 14 other Eastern Bloc nations announce their boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics due to be held in Los Angeles. 24 September Ronald Reagan meets the USSR’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, in New York, his first direct contact with a ranking Soviet statesman since he became President. 16 December Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK, meets Mikhail Gorbachev (at that point a senior Politburo member seen as a potential Chernenko successor) for lunch and discussions at Chequers, the PM’s country house retreat, as part of an effort to open up new lines of communication with senior Soviet leaders. The meeting is positive, prompting Thatcher to remark afterwards that she found herself liking Gorbachev and that ‘she can do business with this man.’ 1985 10 March Konstantin Chernenko is the third Soviet leader to die in office in as many years. He is replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev, who has just turned 54, thus becoming the youngest Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin. 19 November Reagan and Gorbachev meet in Geneva for the first US-Soviet head of state summit in six years. No concrete results are achieved beyond commitments to expand certain diplomatic, commercial and cultural links, and an agreement to hold a further two summits.