Sandcastle of Theory: A Critique of Amitai Etzioni’s Communitarianism

Sandcastle of Theory

A Critique of Amitai Etzioni’s Communitarianism

COLIN S. GRAYUniversity of Reading, England

Amitai Etzioni’s communitarianism offers an attractive but impractical vision. The globalthreats that he cites as engines for a communitarian future are not convincing as the triggersfor epochal benign change in human security arrangements. Communitarianism has fourespecially fatal flaws: it is too large an idea and as a consequence, it overreaches; it poses thewrong question, and therefore provides a wrong answer; it rests on the fallacy that historycan register a grand benign transformation in security affairs; and it assumes, unreasonably,that struggles for power and influence among the greater powers will not occur in the future.

Keywords: communitarianism; community; realism; order; culture

It seems churlish to be strongly critical of a pleasing idea advanced by a giftedscholar. The critique in this article is crafted reluctantly, because ProfessorEtzioni’s (2004) vision is far more attractive than is mine (Gray, 2005). I wouldprefer by far to inhabit the communitarian world that he all but predicts ratherthan the one that I anticipate with a depressingly high measure of confidence. Atrouble with Etzioni’s communitarianism is that it is bound to lead to disappoint-ment. A further trouble is that to aspire and strive for the impossible must com-prise a journey to nowhere, whereas the possible and the necessary areneglected. Ideas matter. The very attractiveness of communitarianism, particu-larly when it is advocated as persuasively as does Etzioni in his book FromEmpire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations, renders itdangerous. The danger that Etzioni will mislead many well-meaning people isespecially acute because much of his argument is sound. Communitarianism isattractive, even morally compelling, and can appeal quite persuasively to muchcontemporary evidence of trends. I am more skeptical of trend-based projec-tions than is Etzioni, and I am not friendly to the use of one of his favorite con-cepts, “the foreseeable future.” But, then, that should be no surprise, given myprofessional background.

It may be important for me to declare my professional concerns and, hence,my probable biases and my worldview before I proceed into the body of this

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article. I am a strategic theorist and defense analyst of more than 30-years’standing. I share some interests and attitudes with Etzioni (2004). For example, Iagree with him on the importance of ideas, indeed of culture in all its opacity,complexity, and contestability (Gray, 1999a, chap. 5). Etzioni’s is a work ofinternational relations theory by a sociologist. Given that the communitarianproject rests fundamentally on observation and prediction of how global safetycan be improved, Etzioni is venturing, full throttle, into my professionalterritory as a strategist.

The analysis that follows is organized, first, to give credit to the aspects ofEtzioni’s (2004) argument that are historically or theoretically compelling andsecond, to provide a critique of its less plausible features. Because my overalljudgment on communitarianism is negative, particular attention is devoted toexplanation of its shortcomings.

IN PRAISE OF ETZIONI

Etzioni (2004) insisted convincingly that global community must precedeglobal government and that it must be glued together by a very substantial moralconsensus. In other words, there needs to be a community of values. That neces-sity translates into the need for synthesis between the values of Western andEastern societies. As Etzioni emphasized correctly, the values of the West privi-lege individual freedom and autonomy but are less attentive to the protectionsthat favor social order. In the East, the balance is exactly the reverse. Etzioni dis-cerned an “evolving global normative synthesis” (p. 211). So far so good. Infact, so far so very good. The communitarian project is exactly right in its insis-tence on the primacy of “hearts and minds,” values, and culture.

Those among us who, in company with this author, are neoclassical realists(Rose, 1998; Schweller, 2004), find much to our liking in Etzioni’s (2004) the-sis. It is worth mentioning that intelligent, which is to say neoclassical, real-ism, not neorealism with its absurd indifference to societal differences(Mearsheimer, 2001; Waltz, 1979), is far from indifferent to the moral dimen-sion of world politics (Gray, 1993). However, we realists do distinguish betweenpublic and private morality. In a brilliant small book, The Invention of Peace andthe Reinvention of War, Michael Howard (2002), Britain’s most distinguishedmilitary historian, expressed the following notably communitarian thoughts:

The establishment of a global peaceful order thus depends on the creation of aworld community sharing the characteristics that make possible domestic order,and this will require the widest possible diffusion of those characteristics by thesocieties that already possess them. World order cannot be created simply bybuilding international institutions and organizations that do not arise naturally outof the cultural disposition and historical experience of their members. (p. 105)

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Amen! I am not entirely comfortable with Howard’s (2002) advocacy of dif-fusion of the characteristics that enable domestic order. But plainly, he has rele-gated grand architecture for peace to its proper place, which is subordinate to theemergence of a genuine, if less than complete, community of values. One istempted, not entirely mischievously, to suggest a paradox. A global civil societyfar advanced toward achieving a “global normative synthesis,” and culturallyready for “the formulation of specific shared moral understandings that canundergird specific public policies” (Etzioni, 2004, p. 68), would be in scant needof supranational government. I exaggerate, but only to register a serious point.Communitarians would not be the only theorists inclined to take a rosy view ofthe potency of their pet notion at the expense of underestimating the strength ofthe reasons why the world, allegedly, is in need of the practice of the idea atissue. For an analogy, I have written about the arms control paradox: When suchcontrol is most needed, it is politically impracticable; when it is politicallyfeasible, it is largely unnecessary (Gray, 1992).

Overall, Etzioni (2004) and other communitarians perform a useful servicein their insistence on the primacy of culture, most especially in its ideationaldimension. Many realists are too ready to dismiss the influence of ideology andpersonality on events. It is still too little appreciated that culture, including moralvalues and an interest-based approach to security issues, are thoroughly compat-ible (Desch, 1998; Gray, 1999a, chap. 5). The belief that realists exist and per-form in a moral (cultural) vacuum is a fallacy that would be laughable were it notso widely held.

Next, Etzioni (2004) was right on target when he pointed out the sad, persist-ing deficiencies of what he termed, appropriately, “the ‘Old System’—thenational governments and intergovernmental organizations, composed of repre-sentatives of the same nation state” (p. 143). This system, Etzioni claimed, andfew would wish to challenge the assertion, “cannot cope with numerous risingtransnational problems” (p. 143). From the environment to crime, from health toterrorism (for the leading examples), Etzioni made the unremarkable and non-controversial charge that our extant political tools are not up to the job. The com-munitarian project, thus, is built on a persuasive, albeit hardly profound, critiqueof the human political condition. It may be harsh, but one could respond rhetori-cally with a “so what?” Communitarianism, in common with many other“isms,” past, present, and no doubt future, arguably is vulnerable to the chargethat it mistakes the necessary for the feasible. Even if that is an unduly negativejudgment, Etzioni is an honest scholar who admitted that his project is one thatwill require generations to mature. Etzioni agreed with Kofi Annan that the“‘global’ or ‘international community’ . . . is hardly more than embryonic” (p.177), although to be just, the immaturity is not uniform. We may recall LordKeynes’s pointed aphorism that “in the long run we are all dead.” Even if globalcommunity is the cavalry, will it arrive in time? Can it? Nonetheless, Etzioni wascertainly right in much of his analysis of the gap between the scale, scope, and

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seriousness of our security problems and the forms of human political organiza-tion that must strive, however inadequately, to cope with them. Of course, plau-sible diagnosis of current political weakness is not necessarily an argument forcommunitarianism. Indeed, it is not by any means self-evident that com-munitarians are asking the right questions. As is well known, to paraphrase theold Soviet expression, incorrect questions have a way of generating incorrect, atleast irrelevant, answers.

Etzioni’s (2004) communitarianism is a moral vision; it may even be primar-ily a moral vision. Assuming that one shares the values offered, moral visionstend to be exceptionally potent. They not only lend energy to their prophets butalso engage the hopes and beliefs of people to a degree that mere politicalvisions cannot. In addition, moral visions, of whatever content, borrow a vitallegitimacy from the ethical tradition, or traditions, that are locally dominant. Toachieve anything resembling a comprehensive global moral consensus would bea heroic accomplishment. In fact, it is mission impossible if the task isapproached as a job to be done. However, as Etzioni maintained quite plausibly,“The evolving global narrative synthesis is taking place now” (p. 211). On someissues of global concern there are indeed at least the rudiments of a commonglobal opinion. That opinion is expressed primarily by governments, but thevoices of nongovernmental organizations also are heard. Moreover, increasingdemocratization should mean a greater popular propulsion behind official poli-cies (Etzioni, 2004, p. 207). As a grand project, a global community worthy ofthe name would have to be a community that shares a “moral culture” (Etzioni,2004, p. 206).

Unfortunately, there is a practical problem with Etzioni’s (2004) vision of anemerging global community that coalesces gradually, almost naturally, on theback of a growing moral consensus that is, at least, a synthesis of Western andEastern notions of the good society. Although Etzioni is right to emphasize themoral dimension, he appears to ignore the argument, favored by this theorist,that norms are driven by culture, rather than vice versa, and that in its turn, cul-ture is driven by context. Logic and empirical study lead me to believe that amoral consensus, emerging or even mature, is highly vulnerable to ambush bynonpermissive circumstances. Those with a shallow grasp of the meaning of themoral dimension to realist theory are especially prone to fail to grasp that normsare a dependent variable, shaped and even driven by the dynamic historical con-text, not the bedrock on which a better world can be built. Still, Etzioni isundoubtedly right to privilege morality, norms, as the essential fuel for commu-nitarian growth globally. The fact, perhaps arguable fact, that the norms may notbe robust under fire does not contradict the logic of the position that holds that acommunity must be a community of extensively shared values.

As one would expect of a sociologist, Etzioni’s (2004) communitarian pro-ject is very much a cultural undertaking. Culture, which is prominent among themost contested of contestable concepts, recently has become fashionableamong political scientists and historians. Inevitably, the concept sometimes has




been adopted and employed with more enthusiasm than understanding and dis-crimination (Black, 2004, pp. 55-58). In common with geography, culture maybe employed to explain too much, a feature that means that it is in peril of beingable to explain nothing much at all. The communitarian project, of necessity, isrelatively optimistic about the prospect for a significant measure of global cul-tural convergence. Communitarians have to be of that opinion if they are toadhere to their vision of a global community that would approximate a globalcivil society.

What do we mean by culture? My own definition, the definition of a strategistwho is a neoclassical realist, is as follows: Culture refers to the socially transmit-ted habits of mind, attitudes, traditions, and preferred methods of operation, thatare more or less specific to a particular, geographically based security commu-nity (Gray, 1990, p. 45). Culture can and does change, sometimes radically andin nonlinear ways under the shock of great, especially catastrophic, events. Butunlike opinion, it is deeply rooted in the reactions of a society to its historicalexperience, both actual and legendary. Many Western realists, and especiallymany American strategists, have been blind to the significance of cultural differ-ences. So persistent and so damaging has this blindness been that a leadingAmerican military analyst, a retired major general no less, recently wrote a pow-erful article about the need for the U.S. armed forces to acquire far morecompetence in what he termed “culture-centric warfare” (Scales, 2004).

Etzioni (2004) is surely correct to emphasize the social and, hence, the cul-tural basis for the communitarian project. Nonetheless, one can hardly help butfeel that he underestimated the scale of the challenge, notwithstanding the syn-thesizing effects of globalization and some democratization. To avoid needlessconfusion, I must explain that culture, perhaps even cultural transformation, liesat the core of the communitarian vision. For a truly global community to emergeand mature, that community must be the bearer of a no less truly global culture,at least on matters of the highest significance (a judgment which itself, ofcourse, is inalienably cultural). The sociologist Raymond Williams (1994) use-fully defined culture as having three categories: the “ideal,” the “documentary,”and the “social.” In other words, culture is ideas or values; it is the evidence ofideas; and it is behavior (Williams, 1994, p. 56). Culture is pervasive. Indeed, itis so pervasive that it threatens to be unmanageable for social scientists as a toolof analysis. Nonetheless, Etzioni’s message that culture really matters is impor-tant, indeed vital (Hanson, 2001; Lynn, 2003). Only now, although not yet con-vincingly, are the U.S. government and armed forces demonstrating recognitionof this point.

My final source of broad-band satisfaction with Etzioni’s (2004)communitarianism is with his realistic gradualism. Despite my overall skepti-cism (see the next section), Etzioni’s project is explained with ample caveats andwith generous allowance made for the time necessary for the venture to mature.The realism of his understanding is well illustrated in the following quotation:




Above all, as outlined in the discussion of the global normative synthesis, currentworldwide moral dialogues already are leading to the formation of some globalnorms and values and the beginnings of a shared political culture, which areimportant building blocks for community formation, however slow and distantsuch a development may seem.

Communities, it is important to stress, do not come in digital switches, on oroff; they come in varying degrees of thickness [italics added]. (Etzioni, 2004,p. 197)

Quite so, and very well said. What we find in Etzioni’s (2004) From Empireto Community is superior pragmatic description, analysis, and advocacy of awonderful, but alas ultimately forlorn, hope. This article now turns to explainjust why communitarianism, for all its notable attractions, is foredoomed todisappoint.

ALAS, SOME FATAL FLAWS

This section does not purport to offer a comprehensive critique of Etzioni’s(2004) communitarianism. I am aware of the fact that so-called cosmopolitansand communitarians have been locked in scholarly combat for some time. Theformer are uncomfortable with the apparent demotion of the individual bycommunitarians, which they view as the basic unit in world, certainly in global,politics. To emphasize the importance of community (of humans in society)may offer injudicious, even unintended, support for the states’ system. Notbeing a theorist of international relations, I shall leave concerns such as the one Ihave just cited to those who are expert in that particularly dark and in my opin-ion, typically unrewarding field. What follows is a critique from the perspectiveof a historically oriented neoclassical realism in general and strategic studies inparticular. I have felt it necessary to reemphasize my perspective, lest somereaders should be puzzled by, or highly critical of, my neglect of some majortheoretical issues in the debate.

In the interests of clarity and brevity, the discussion is organized in four broadcharges.

Communitarianism is too large and ambitious an idea; it seriously over-reaches. Although Etzioni (2004) allowed for interim steps, the creation ofregional communities (pp. 191-193), for example, and granted that his project iscertainly of a long-term nature, there is no disguising the fact that what he advo-cated is a “magic bullet.” Etzioni is suitably dismissive of such magic bullets asthe creation “in short order” of “one new institution that would cope with most,if not all, that must be attended to” (p. 161). But what else is communitarianismif not such a bullet, at least in ultimate effect if not in promptness of execution?

Etzioni (2004) has succumbed to the temptation to argue, apparently logi-cally, that the very large problems of global insecurity mandate assault by a




single very large solution. His favored grand, indeed very grand, solution is thefostering of global community. If that millennial dream is a little too ambitiousto be credible, he envisaged the emergence of regional communities. It is impor-tant to note that Etzioni appears to assume that those communities would behavecooperatively, rather than after the manner of the multipolar players, locked inperpetual strife, in George Orwell’s (1989) Nineteen Eighty-Four. Notwith-standing the abundant realism in his recognition of the scope and scale of the dif-ficulties that must hinder the progress of his project, his is a visionary venture.After all, Etzioni proposed nothing less than the creation of a genuinely globalcommunity. True, it would be accomplished functionally, step by step, with aglobal safety authority to be followed by a global health authority, a global envi-ronmental authority, and so on. The serious intention, however, would be to shiftmore and more from the unsatisfactory realm of governance to the happier landof proper government. Etzioni is selling the old ideal of world government,albeit in sophisticated form. Such a creation would have to rest on the maturingof a single, global moral community.

Communitarianism is a classic example of a wonderful but wholly impracti-cal idea. We may recall that the first victims of false prophecy typically are theprophets themselves. It seems to me that in the course, perhaps because, of care-ful study of the “how,” communitarians have lost touch with reality. Above allelse, they have forgotten just how large and demanding is their vision of a globalcommunity. Their all-purpose answer to the many ills of the world is, of course,“community.” This answer is emotionally and morally attractive, but it is des-perately short of compelling evidence in its support. No one can accuse Etzioni(2004) of marketing a quick fix; certainly his magic bullet is not of that kind.However, as mentioned previously, communitarianism is, in effect, a magic bul-let. It is proposed as the very big solution to similarly big dilemmas. Given someof Etzioni’s optimistic assumptions, knowingly or otherwise (regional commu-nities will not be antagonists, great-power war is now obsolete), it is difficult toresist the conclusion that communitarianism is advanced as a panacea. It is, orrather ultimately it would be, the multifunctional, comprehensive answer to oursecurity problems. Etzioni’s communitarianism promises too much; its keyworking assumptions do not work well enough, and—as I will explain—it isgloriously circular in its logic, meaning that it is impregnably unfalsifiable as atheory.

Communitarianism is flawed by faulty conceptualization. It poses the wrongquestion and therefore, necessarily, it provides the wrong answer. Creation of aglobal community of humankind, with or without retention of nation-states,would be a very big, perhaps a definitive, answer to some equally big question.(As an aside, I am much taken with Etzioni’s [2004] witty comment that “neitherGod nor nature created national sovereignty” [p. 137]). But what is that ques-tion, and is it the right one? Presumably, community is needed to alleviate, and itis hoped eventually eradicate, the hindrances to global cooperation. If, arguably,




democracies tend not to fight each other (Brown, Lynn-Jones, & Miller, 1996;Doyle, 1998; Weart, 1998), then it is near certain that members of the same com-munity would not do so—to cite the most serious of reasons for pursuing com-munitarian logic. Unfortunately, communitarianism is not a very useful answerbecause it is devised to meet the wrong question.

There is no single question of global security that can be met productively bya single grand answer. By analogy, perhaps more than analogy, all scholarlyefforts, for more than 80 years, to craft a general theory of the causes, or cause,of war have failed miserably (Blanning, 1986, chap. 1). One looks in vain forany modern scholarly advance on Thucydides’s “fear, honor, and interest” fromcirca 400 B.C. (Strassler, 1996, p. 43). A communitarian could comment that theabsence of community is a necessary condition, an enabler, for organized vio-lence for political ends, which is to say, war. Such a comment would be true, bututterly unhelpful. It is evident that community creation has the function of a pan-acea. Whatever the local, regional, or global problem, the answer is: “build com-munity.” If one observes that in some cases community building is likely to takea very long time, if it is feasible at all, communitarians can agree and concedethat their’s is a mission for generations, not the next decade or two.

On close inspection, communitarianism has at least two fundamental con-ceptual flaws. First, it provides a solution, albeit of a gradual and long-termcharacter, to a problem that is not a problem. The absence of a global communityworthy of the name is not a problem at all; rather, it is an enduring condition. It istrue that today there is a great deal of international cooperation in the struggleagainst terrorism and nuclear proliferation, but too much should not be read intothis approximate parallelism of many national interests. Etzioni (2004) failed totake due account of the significance of the geopolitical context. The prospectsfor a global security authority, which Etzioni envisaged as a communitariandevelopment out of the struggle just cited (p. 211), would fall victim with light-ning speed to a sharp deterioration in the geopolitical context. When great-power rivalries revive, as assuredly they must, the hopes for a global communitywill be shown, not for the first time in modern history, to be sadly delusional. Mypoint is that the absence of a global civil society or community is not a problemthat we can address with any serious expectation of achieving some facsimile ofa solution, communitarian or otherwise. This is not to deny that efforts to createcommunity, which is to say a moral community or a community of values,should be helpful. I am all in favor of communitarian endeavors. What we mustnot do is allow ourselves to be persuaded that those worthwhile efforts carry anypromise of contributing to the evolution of a grand solution to humankind’sglobal security dilemmas. Intercommunal strife is, alas, a condition of ourpolitical existence.

The second major conceptual flaw in communitarian theory is its circularityand, hence, its unfalsifiability. So grand is the communitarian vision that its sup-portive logic can answer any and all criticisms. No matter how severe the chal-lenges to realization of the vision that one can cite, the communitarian has an




immaculate, impenetrable response. The growth of true communities, region-ally and it is hoped globally, will permit cooperative, indeed literally communal,action. If that is one’s position, then there is really nothing more to be said.Communitarianism, at root, is a panacea masquerading as a realistic approach to(some) admitted difficulties. Etzioni’s (2004) theory cannot be falsified. It hasno compelling historical support, and it offers a future proofed against manyvery unpleasant surprises. That is to say, it is proofed against the kinds of sur-prises and surprise effects that the lack of community enables to occur. If com-munity is not a magic bullet, it is difficult to know what would be so categorized.

Communitarianism rests on the fallacious assumption that benign transfor-mation is possible in world politics. This assumption derives from a lack ofrespect for history. Today’s communitarians are but the latest to stand in the longline of liberal optimists who have endorsed the creed that humankind either isactually, or certainly is capable of, carrying through a benign transformation ofits security condition. This is the Whig interpretation of history (Clark, 1989,pp. 1-9). It is the view that sees history essentially in teleological terms. The bigstory is progress. With reference to Etzioni’s (2004) theory, future history willwitness a slow, but nonetheless cumulatively decisive and presumably irrevers-ible, march toward global community. For example, Etzioni wrote, “Assumingthat the crablike walk of global progress towards democratization will continue,it will increase the global attentive public that has access to free media and isable to express itself morally and politically” (p. 207). He may or may not beproved correct. What is of interest is his working assumption that democratiza-tion is a trend with legs, as the saying goes. Even more telling is Etzioni’s claimto have

shown that the ad hoc antiterrorism coalition is on its way to becoming, or at leastmight be converted into, a standing Global Safety Authority, and that it is expand-ing the scope of its missions to include deproliferation and, to a much lesser butgrowing extent, pacification and humanitarian interventions. (p. 163)

He seems not to have considered the possible relevance of Carl von Clausewitz’s(1976) cautionary concept of “the culminating point of victory” (pp. 566-573).International cooperation against terrorism and the diffusion of nuclear weap-ons may have peaked already.

Etzioni (2004) transcended scholarship, especially a respect for evidence,particularly the evidence of accessible historical experience, all 2,500 years ofit, and flew off engagingly into the sunlit uplands of prophecy. To support thiscriticism, I must offer this extensive quotation from his book:

At this point, one cannot avoid the question of whether there could be a true globalgovernment. In light of the new global conditions, the fact that all attempts tomove in this direction in earlier generations did not take off is an insufficient rea-son not to reconsider the question. The fact that such deliberations had an aura of




day dreaming in the past should not stop a serious analysis, given the pressingglobal problems and the inadequate responses by existing governments andnonstate actors. Moreover, even if global community building is a pipe dream,could several nations fully unify and form a United States of Europe or a LatinAmerican community? Such regional supranationalities would significantlyenhance the treatment of regional and even global problems. (Etzioni, 2004,p. 182)

Etzioni was right to assert that past political failure is not an authoritativeguide to the prospects for success in the future. Conditions change and so mightthe odds in favor of the emergence of ever-larger communities. However, asEtzioni acknowledged in the passage quoted, our historical experience withtruly grand designs for regional, let alone global, security all point in the direc-tion of acute disappointment for liberal optimists. The EU may seem to be apotent exception to the historical rule, but the extraordinary political and strate-gic contexts of its origins and development should give pause to those who see init hope for a far more communitarian future. The EU, founded on the axis ofFranco-German reconciliation, was enabled by the continental trauma of defeatin World War II and was, and remains, a security ward of the United States.

In the long quotation, Etzioni (2004) came perilously close to arguing, orasserting, in the Toynbeean mode of challenge and response. He cited “pressingglobal problems” and “inadequate responses” by existing political actors. Thatis true enough, but do those incontestable facts provide serious grounds for hopethat humankind will be able to organize itself more effectively in the future?

I have a philosophical difference with Etzioni; which means that neither of usis likely to persuade the other. We have distinctive, competing worldviews thatrest on incompatible assumptions about the human condition and the courseof history. To my mind, communitarianism is simply one among those ever-popular millennial theories that carries the highly attractive promise of a benigntransformation in global security affairs. To scholars of my neoclassical realistpersuasion, the course of history shows both constant change, albeit at an irregu-lar pace and unevenly around the world, and permanence (Gray, 1999b). Oneshould never say never concerning some radical political possibility, and oneshould be suspicious of arguments that are supported by the claim that “historyshows.” In the hands of skilled disputants, historical “evidence” can be manipu-lated to show almost anything that is helpful in debate. This does not alter thefact that history is not only the best guide to the future but also the only one wehave. Caveat emptor. Nonetheless, the game of nations, of polities perhaps, hasnot altered in its essentials during the course of two and a half millennia. We canstill read with profit Thucydides’s brilliant, if dangerously unique, account ofthe great war between Athens and Sparta. Similarly, contrary to the claims ofsome scholars (Honig, 1997; Kaldor, 1999; van Creveld, 1991), Clausewitzcomposed a general theory of war that fits all periods, all character of belli-gerents, and all technological and social contexts (Bassford, 1994; Gray,forthcoming; Kinross, 2004).




The fact that great benign transformations in world politics have never beeneffected successfully in the past, either by conscious design or by accident ofhistory, is not conclusive proof that such must be impossible in the future. Butthe persistence of failure should at least suggest to open minds that there may besystemic and enduring reasons for the repetition of disappointment. If for 2,500years, humankind resolutely has declined to forswear the joys of violent inter-tribal competition, why should that condition alter in the near future? Etzioni(2004) was exceptionally weak in his answers to this admittedly loaded but vitalskeptical question. He provided a threefold reply. Etzioni claimed, persuasively,that “nation states and the Old System that relies on them have proven moreinadequate for coping with transnational problems” (p. 176). This is probablybest regarded as a regrettable, but unavoidable, persisting reality. Next, Etzionireminded us that “new technological developments have vastly increased thepotential for worldwide communications and concerted actions and hence gov-ernance” (p. 176). Again, this is true, but one must ask, So what? It is improbablethat poor communication and the technical difficulties that impede collaborativebehavior have been especially damaging to global security in the past. Since theworld was “wired” in the 19th century by the electric telegraph, including under-sea cables (from the 1870s)—“the Victorian Internet” (Standage, 1998)—andthen, later, by the telephone, poor communication ceased to be a major factor ininternational security politics, if it ever was. Poor understanding is another mat-ter entirely, although even in that regard it would be a serious error to assumethat misunderstanding is a potent source of intersocietal and interstate conflict.

Etzioni’s (2004) third item in support of his claim that “it is time to re-examine the subject [of global governing bodies]” (p. 176), is particularlyunpersuasive. This is unfortunate, because the third item is the one that seeks toexplain why the first two items really matter. Just what is it that should triggerserious reconsideration of taking steps toward global governance and govern-ment? The answer provided is the following: “As has long been argued, theworld might unite if it faced a global threat, a threat that massive terrorism andweapons of mass destruction clearly constitute” (Etzioni, 2004, p. 176). If onereads rapidly, that claim might pass muster. After all, it is unquestionably true.Yes, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) do constitute globalthreats. But the reality, if incalculability, of dire threats carries no magical qual-ity that renders the impracticable practicable. One of the maxims that we neo-classical realists hold is that “the impossible really is impossible.” There are,however, two more telling reasons why Etzioni’s contemporary triggers forcommunitarian global action are less than convincing.

First, the global threats that Etzioni (2004) cited as the sparks that shouldlight the prairie fire of communitarian advance are, frankly, less than awesomewhen considered in recent historical perspective. The events of 9/11 were a trag-edy, but they killed only 3,000 people in New York plus several hundred inWashington. Al Qaeda’s other outrages, thus far, have resulted in fatality lists inthe tens and hundreds. Even if, or when, Osama bin Laden, his fellow travelers,




and eventually his successors acquire WMD and have plausible means of reli-able delivery, the threat, most likely, will not comprise more than a singlenuclear device. Chemical weapons in al Qaeda’s hands would be a nightmare,but for technical reasons one with strictly bounded consequences from use.They tend to be bulky, subject to environmental attenuation, and have a very lim-ited geographical reach. Biological weapons would be a different matter alto-gether, but the uncertainties of safe delivery and effect must be discouraging,although certainly not conclusively so. As living organisms, biological weaponsare very sensitive to the conditions in which they are transported and incubated,and the fatalities that they would cause by contagion must always be profoundlyuncertain. With the exception of the truly superthreat of pathogens that create aglobal pandemic, triggered either by design or inadvertently, Etzioni’s menacesare barely on the nursery slopes of our recent experience with severe global cri-ses. A nuclear-armed al Qaeda might well kill several hundred thousand people,most probably no more (Barnaby, 2003). That would be terrible. But only 15years ago, the superpower rivals had war plans and the nuclear forces to executethem that could well have killed people by the tens, or hundreds, of millions.Terrorists might one day acquire a nuclear weapon or two, scarcely many more.For a little perspective, by the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union had a nuclear stock-pile that may have been as high as 46,000 weapons of all kinds (Cochran, Arkin,Norris, & Sands, 1989, p. 25). My point is not that terrorists with WMD wouldpose a trivial threat. Rather, I am suggesting that if 45 years of civilization-smashing nuclear peril failed to effect a radical transformation in the conduct ofworld politics, it is hardly plausible to maintain that terrorists with a nuclearweapon or two would succeed. While we are on the subject of very large num-bers, World War I registered total fatalities of approximately 9,450,000 (and15,404,905 wounded; Ferguson, 1998, p. 295), whereas World War II (includ-ing Japan’s war in China) set a new gold standard with a death toll that may havebeen as high as 57,000,000 (Willmott, 1989, p. 477).

Those dreadful numbers, so large as to be almost beyond comprehension,and which represent a scale and variety of suffering that assuredly is beyond ourgrasp, did translate into a considerable debellicization of some societies. None-theless, the repeated threat and then actuality of world war, as well as the threatof a global nuclear war that truly could have been The War That Will End War(the title of a pamphlet by H. G. Wells written on August 14, 1914; Ferguson,1998, p. 233), did not provide the magic bullet able to slay one of the four Horse-men of the Apocalypse. It might be argued that terrorists with WMD would posea common threat to most of humankind, a claim that would be a notable exagger-ation, whereas the crises of the 20th century set polities against each other. Inreply, one could refer to the historical record of antiwar, especially antinuclear,sentiment and propaganda. Since 1918, there has been a substantial body ofopinion in many countries, in my opinion misguided although sincere, whichhas regarded war itself as the great problem. If the three World Wars of the pastcentury, two hot and one mercifully cold, could not effect a benign transforma-




tion in our conduct of world affairs, it seems improbable that Osama bin Ladenwill succeed, no matter how well he and his cohorts and affiliates are armed.

The second major weakness in Etzioni’s (2004) theory of how superthreatscan, might, should, or will—select your preference—promote the communi-tarian agenda, is that it is, frankly, an exercise in wishful thinking. Rephrased,the proposition that unusually severe global threats of any and all kinds willspark a cooperative global response resting on a consensus of values is anexpression of hope over historical experience. Etzioni could be right, but pru-dence, the statesman’s supreme virtue (Aron, 1966, p. 585), warns us that mostprobably he is not. I can envisage only one global threat scenario that wouldunite all of humankind—a menace from outer space. Recall the 1990s movieIndependence Day. But even in the event of extraterrestrial threat, we can be rea-sonably sure that polities would disagree on what action to take, whereas someambitious rising power, or fearful falling power, might well be tempted to tryand secure an alliance with the aliens.

It should be the case that we humans in our many societies would respond as aglobal community to a megathreat, guided by Benjamin Franklin’s worthy prin-ciple of hanging together lest we hang separately. Unfortunately, although suchcooperation is possible, it is by no means the dominant probability. I will illus-trate my sad doubts about the plausibility of Etzioni’s (2004) argument by quot-ing from Schwartz and Randall’s (2003) report prepared for the U.S. Depart-ment of Defense and titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and ItsImplications for United States National Security. The report draws heavily onthe work of Professor Steven LeBlanc, Harvard archaeologist and coauthor of abook on the relationship between “carrying capacity” and war (LeBlanc &Register, 2003):

Drawing on abundant archaeological and ethnological data, LeBlanc argues thathistorically humans conducted organized warfare for a variety of reasons, includ-ing warfare over resources and the environment. Humans fight when they outstripthe carrying capacity of their natural environment. Every time there is a choicebetween starving and raiding, humans raid. (Schwartz & Randall, 2003, p. 16)

Following LeBlanc, Schwartz and Randall noted that

in the last three centuries . . . advanced states have steadily lowered the body counteven though individual wars and genocides have grown larger in scale. Instead ofslaughtering all their enemies in the traditional way, for example, states merelykill enough to get a victory and then put the survivors to work in their newlyexpanded economy. (p. 161)

All of that progressive behavior could collapse if carrying capacities every-where were suddenly lowered drastically by abrupt climate change. Humanitywould revert to its norm of constant battles for diminishing resources, which the




battles themselves would further reduce even beyond the climatic effects. Onceagain, warfare would define human life (Schwartz & Randall, 2003, pp. 16-17).

Schwartz and Randall (2003) speculated, all too plausibly, that

as global and local carrying capacities are reduced tensions would mount aroundthe world, leading to two fundamental strategies, defensive and offensive. Nationswith the resources to do so may build virtual fortresses around their countries, pre-serving resources for themselves. (p. 2)

I am not necessarily endorsing the grim analysis and conclusions of the report,but I am one of those who believe that by and large, our past is our future. Inother words, during the course of millennia, we humans tend to behave in thesame way when confronted with the same kind of stimulus, in this case thesuperthreat. The historical record, as well as our knowledge of human natureand political behavior, strongly suggests that the pessimistic conclusions ofthe report I have quoted are rather more plausible than is Etzioni’s (2004) postu-late of a global communitarian response.

Etzioni’s communitarianism assumes too limited a range of future politicaland strategic threats. Also, his theory pays scant respect to the way in whichglobal order is protected. Probably the most glaring weakness in Etzioni’s(2004) From Empire to Community is its unargued, silent assumption that thestrategic history of great-power competition and war is now in the past. Thecommunitarian project is launched in a permissive political and strategic con-text. To explain, the threats to which Etzioni paid most attention are those thatshould, and at least in theory could, spur some concerted action, regionally andperhaps globally. His strategic superthreats, recall, are terrorism and WMD. Ihave already suggested that these threats are not quite as super as he maintained,but they do have the signal virtue for his thesis that they provide a context maxi-mally permissive of communitarian ventures. However, if we adopt a more bal-anced and realistic view of future strategic history, we notice at once that inter-state rivalry has not been left behind in the garbage can of history. More to thepoint, perhaps, we cannot be confident that that is, or will be, so.

Forward-looking, at least right-thinking, people, “progressive” ones per-haps, in Etzioni’s (2004) revealing choice of adjective (p. 201, referring to“champions of the United Nations”), seem to have solved the age-old problemor condition of interstate or intercommunal strife by assuming it away. Etzionidiscussed at length how global perils may be met by new global agencies of gov-ernance and how, one day, those agencies may lead to global government. Butthere is no discussion of the challenge to his vision and scheme that must beposed by the reemergence of geopolitical rivalries among states. Those inter-state contentions have not vanished; rather, they are largely in temporary abey-ance pending both some weakening of the current American hegemony andmuch strengthening of intending rivals. How promising does the communi-




tarian project look if the principal problems of global safety in the 21st centurytranspire to be not terrorism or the diffusion of WMD to marginal actors butinstead, a return of great-power strife? We are likely to witness the rise of Chinaas a fairly aggressive regional-plus superpower; the return of a forceful authori-tarian Russia; and the slow emergence of a European superstate determined tosecure a collective political influence to match its economic weight in a worldcharacterized by competitive multipolarity. These developments are not by anymeans certain, but there is contemporary evidence in their support and they arefar from fanciful. At the present time, an informal Sino-Russian alliance appearsto be emerging, with connections to Iran and to Venezuela. This possible “bloc,”keyed to the control of access to energy resources, is determinedly hostile toAmerican hegemonism. A new cold war may be brewing. This is highly specu-lative, of course, but the evidence of financial, economic, and diplomatic coop-eration is compelling, at least at present. If communitarianism has a future onlyin a highly permissive historical context, it is not likely to be of much practicalvalue as a contributor to global peace with order. As I have commented already,the communitarian thesis is more than casually reminiscent of the promise ofarms control: When we need it we cannot have it, and when we can obtain it, wedo not need it.

If I am correct, or if I could well be correct, in arguing that world politics willnot see a transition “from empire to community” but rather, from hegemony tomultipolar great-power rivalry, it has to follow that the burden of sustainingsome world order is likely to be heavy. The most potent enemies of order will notbe homeless terrorists empowered by a WMD or two. Rather will the leadingmenace flow from states jostling for influence and greater control of their exter-nal environment, for the satisfaction of domestic urges as well as for reasons ofrealpolitik. Such is the position held by we neoclassical realists. Internationalrelations are very much about the relative power of states, but the logic of inter-national action is filtered through domestic lenses. The communitarian vision,as evidenced in Etzioni’s (2004) book title, From Empire to Community, envis-ages benign American leadership of an emerging global community committedto combat common global challenges. As American primacy wanes, or as theinstitutionalization of communitarian governance matures, so, presumably,America’s role becomes ever less imperial. If, inadvertently, I misstate Etzioni’sargument, I apologize. Overall, as best I can divine, he envisaged a very lengthy,but generally cooperative, process of global community and institutionbuilding.

The communitarian project, as explained to date, appears to rest on the unrea-sonable and unhistorical assumption that fairly great states will be content toplay constructive communitarian roles under U.S. leadership. I suspect thatEtzioni (2004) has confused pragmatic state behavior in a dynamic strategiccontext with state behavior in all contexts in the future. Today, the United Statesis militarily hegemonic, culturally hugely influential, but economically less thandominant. America’s potential state rivals for global influence are no longer




hampered, or partially propelled, by noxious ideologies. The Second and ThirdWorld Wars of the 20th century effected the defeat, respectively, of fascism andcommunism, and seemed to leave liberal democracy and free market capitalismas the only ideology still standing (Fukuyama, 1992; Mandelbaum, 2002).Islamic fundamentalism is not a serious ideological contender, probably noteven within the Dar ul Islam (the House of Islam) itself. However, should a greatIslamic state or empire reemerge and restore the Caliphate that Kemal Attaturkabolished in 1924, should it be well armed with WMD, and should it be inspiredby a militant fundamentalist ideology, then my relaxed judgment would need tobe revised. At present, however, the greater players in the game of states are allfunctioning pragmatically according to the logic of realpolitik, as modified bytheir distinctive domestic pushes and pulls. Communitarians should not makethe error of interpreting today’s global cooperation against terrorists and inrestraint of the diffusion of WMD, more or less under American leadership, asanything more than pragmatic behavior in a political and strategic contextwherein there are no attractive alternatives to cooperation.

It does not take a Jeremiah to predict that as China continues to modernize, asEU-Europe acquires more of the features of statehood, and as Russia abandonsmore and more of its erstwhile, generally unprofitable, entente with the UnitedStates, that hoary old concept, the balance of power, will begin to feature signifi-cantly in world order politics once again. Indeed, already there is growing eco-nomic and political evidence of the gradual emergence of a new anti-Western,certainly anti-American bloc. As noted already, the core of the new grouping is aSino-Russian axis, which is linked by economic ties to Iran, Syria, and Vene-zuela. Bear in mind that the balance of power has been resting for only 15 years,the mere blink of an eye in historical time. Is communitarianism an effectivecounter to the possible return of great-power struggles? Or is it foredoomed tobe an early victim of the next historical cycle of such rivalry. Communitariansneed to explain either how they would cope with the challenge of great-powerantagonism and competition or why that challenge cannot arise in the future.

Howard (2002) advised that “new world orders, as we have seen, need to bepoliced” (p. 124). At present, the United States is the only possible orderingpower with respect to the tasks that require exceptional effort and risk. As muchby default as by choice, America is the sheriff of this era (Gray, 2004). Posses ofvarious sizes can be gathered for particular missions, but they will not form, andcertainly will not ride, if the United States stays home. America does not alwaysperform the sheriff role effectively, or wisely, but it is the only plausible leader ofdisciplinary action on behalf of global order extant when the challenge is severe.There is no deputy sheriff schooled and ready for promotion, nor is there a closerival who could assume the role currently played by the United States. Com-munitarianism is not entirely at odds with this situation. On some issues, there isa genuine workable compatibility, not identity, of interests, although not neces-sarily of values, and the American sheriff is able to act for the global communitywith relatively little criticism. By and large, however, the U.S. ordering role is




sanctioned by America’s power and by the relative powerlessness of would-berivals. Those Asian and European rivals are not in the process of adopting globalcommunitarian values. They respect the fact of current U.S. strategic hegemonyand are biding their time pragmatically, pending a shift in their relative fortunes.

CONCLUSIONS

This article is titled “Sandcastle of Theory” not to level a gratuitous insult butrather, to suggest that a handsome and attractive edifice will not survive the inev-itable coming in of the tide of “bad times.” In this case, the tide will be the returnof great-power antagonism and rivalry. All the while the United States retains anunchallengeable strategic hegemony, the communitarian project may wellappear to prosper, as potential partial rivals, such as Putin’s Russia, behave pru-dently and pragmatically, which is to say generally cooperatively. When U.S.global dominance erodes, as erode it must, states will have to make geopoliticalchoices. Countries in East Asia will need to choose between bandwagoning withthe emerging Chinese superstate or maintaining their traditional ties with theUnited States, should Washington continue to be willing to serve as an orderingpower in the region. India and Japan will face hard choices between self-helpand foreign security association. Similarly, if the United States steps back fromthe sheriff role, either for reason of a declining strategic dominance or as likely,because of the loss of domestic consensus in its support, EU-Europe and Russiaalso would confront some awesome choices entailing novel risks andopportunities.

Although the greater states can agree, for their several reasons, on the need tosuppress Islamic insurgency, it would be a serious mistake to assume that WMD,or even a small-scale nuclear war, must accelerate communitarian processes.Not all major players will be equally distressed by WMD developments in par-ticular cases. A reliable maxim about the history of international politics holdsthat “bad times return”; at least it is a maxim treated as authoritative by we neo-classical realists. When such times do return to interstate relations, in additionto, or instead of, the current trouble with Islamic insurgents, a communitarianproject that by its own admission is generations distant from maturity mustprove grossly unequal to the task of keeping order. A peace sustained by a tolera-bly just world order, and not excluding the necessity for occasional violentpeacemaking, will have to be maintained by some polity or coalition behav-ing in the role of global sheriff. The communitarian vision, as outlined byEtzioni (2004), appears to lack the muscle to defend global order. The returnof hard times in world politics would demonstrate just how vulnerable iscommunitarianism to a lethal paradox. States pull together when the pulling iseasy or when they have no prudent alternative. When the pulling is difficult, andindeed is believed to be contrary to national interests, would-be global commu-nities will be washed away.




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COLIN S. GRAY is professor of international politics and strategic studies at the Universityof Reading, England. A strategic theorist and defense analyst for more than 30 years, he hasbeen a government adviser on such subjects as nuclear strategy, arms control, maritimestrategy, space forces, and special operations. He is the author of 19 books, the most recent ofwhich are Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), TheSheriff: America’s Defense of the New World Order (University Press of Kentucky, 2004),and Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and the Evidence of History (FrankCass, 2002).




Sandcastle of Theory: A Critique of Amitai Etzioni’s Communitarianism

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