travlos cir 2006-08 thesis final

Konstantinos Travlos 1

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

No War Alike? Spheres of Influence, Sources of National

Power, Great Powers and War

By

Konstantinos Travlos

May 2007

A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts degree in the

Committee on International Relations

Faculty Advisor: Charles Lipson

Preceptor: Nuno Monteiro


Abstract

Not all wars between great powers are total wars. In this article I explain variation in the

intensity of great-power wars. To do so, I distinguish between existential wars and wars

over spheres of influence. Whereas the former will always be total wars, the latter may

or may not, escalate to that level. This intensity variation depends on the nature of the

sphere of influence at stake in the war. A sphere of influence can be grounded on

different sources of state power: territoriality, internal mobilization, market control, and

ideological hegemony. The former two are ‘dual-nature’, because they are vital not only

for the maintenance of the sphere of influence but also for the maintenance of the state

itself, and for its capacity to fight existential wars. The later two, are ‘non dual-nature’,

because though they are essential to maintain the sphere of influence, they are not vital

for a state to succeed in an existential war. Consequently, wars over spheres of influence

are more likely to be initiated - and, once initiated, to escalate - when the sphere of

influence that is the object of dispute is grounded on a "dual-nature" source of state

power. Additionally, I examine how an intervening variable, the degree of exclusivity of

the sphere of influence, impacts the intensity of great-power wars. Wars over spheres of

influence are more likely to arise and escalate the more these spheres of influence are

exclusive. I illustrate my theory with two case studies. One is the Crimean War, a case in

which a great-power war fought over a sphere of influence grounded on "non dual-use"

elements of state power did not escalate to become a total war. The second is Pacific war

between the U.S and the Empire of Japan where a war initiated over spheres of influence

crucial to the latter power’s ability to fight an existential war, escalated to such a war.


1. Introduction1

War among the Great Powers is one of the most potent forces in the international

system due to its destructive consequences and political ramifications. That is why it has

been extensively studied by International Relations (I.R) scholars. Three international

relations theories of war that vie to explain the causes of war have come to dominate the

academic field, the rationalist theory of war, the power transition theory of war and the

offense/defense theory of war.2 These theories say a lot about how great-power wars

start, however they fail to explain the variation in intensity among great-power wars.

Either they are silent on this matter or have a bias towards assuming that all great-power

wars have been fought with high intensity. In reality while some great-power wars have

been fought at high levels of intensity, most have not. The focus of scholars on the more

destructive wars is understandable, but limited great-power war can have large

ramifications on history. An example of this is the isolation of Russia and breakdown of

the Holy Alliance in Europe after the Crimean War of 1854-1856.

The absence of an explanation for the variation in intensity among great-power

wars can raise doubts to the claim of I.R theory that disparate events in international

relations can be explained by overarching broad theories. This is dangerous because on

this claim rests the scientific independence of International Relations as an academic field

from History, which rejects broad theories and promotes in depth ‘case by case’ analysis.

The I.R claim to the efficacy of broad overarching theory is not conditional in that it

argues that some international events can be explained by broad theory while others not.

1 This paper was facilitated by an 2006-2007 N.A.T.O scholarship form the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a

Boylan- Sidlik Fellowship for 2007-2008. 2 On the ‘Rationalist’ theory of war see James D. Fearon ,Rationalist Explanations of War, International Organization Vol.49,

No 3 Summer 1995. On ‘Power Transition’ theories of war see Robert Gilpin War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge

1981, A.F.K. Organski World Politics Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1968, Organski and Kulger , The War Ledger, 1990 and Dale

Copeland ,The Origins of Major War, Cornell University Press 2001. On the ‘Offense-Defense’ Theory of War see Stephen

Van Evera ,Causes of War, Cornell University Press 1999, Robert Jervis ,Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma. World

Politics, Vol. 30 No. 2


A broad theory, providing a universal explanation should exist for any international

phenomenon. But while there exist broad theories on the causes of war, there is silence

on explaining the variation in intensity among great-power wars. This absence might be

taken as an inability of I.R to provide such a theory and could lead to challenges to the

validity of the general claim for broad theory.

Furthermore, this situation creates a heuristic gap in the I.R theory on war. As a

result students and scholars wishing to do comparative studies among different wars have

to rely on ‘case by case’ analysis with no overarching theory uniting the disparate cases.

This means that they have to create these ties from scratch, resulting in weak links that

greatly impair comparative study, the understanding of the similarities and differences

between wars, and thereby our understanding of the phenomenon of war.

In order to help avoid such a situation I propose a new theory explaining the

variation in intensity among great-power wars. The new theory will be compatible with

all the existent literature.3 My basic argument is that Great Powers have historically

fought two kinds of war; ‘existential wars’, and ‘influence wars’. Great Powers have

fought ‘existential wars’ in order to protect their independent political survival in the

international system. Great Powers have also fought ‘influence wars’ over spheres of

influence in the international system. ‘Existential wars’ have always been total wars due

to their objective of abolishing or greatly limiting the opponent’s independence. An

example of this is the German-Soviet war in the Second World War. They have also been

extensively studied in I.R., unlike ‘influence wars’.

3 I concentrate on Great Power wars for two reasons. First the majority of the dominant literature does so and

secondly in the case of Great Power vs. Minor Power wars the intensity levels of the war lack the unlimited escalation

potential of wars among equals. This is because even if a Minor Power is fighting at maximum levels of intensity this does not

necessarily dictate the levels of intensity for the Great Power. The disparity in relative power is large enough to permit greater

leeway to the preponderant power on how it will fight. This is not the case with equal and near opponents. Thus my model

should explain wars among Great Powers or alliances of Great Powers, and could explain wars among Minor Powers. For the

time being I opt to use only the first opponent dyads.


In ‘influence wars’ Great Powers fight over spheres of influence that permit them

to shape and control events in the international system and gain additional military

power. These wars have historically varied in intensity. Some have escalated to levels of

intensity close to total war but many were fought at lower levels of intensity.

Consequently a theory that wishes to explain the variation in intensity among great-power

wars must explain the variation of intensity in great-power ‘influence wars’, since

‘existential wars’ do not vary. For example the Pacific War between Japan and the United

States during the Second World War was an ‘influence war’ that escalated to levels of

intensity close to total war. A limited ‘influence war’ was the Crimean War.

I argue that the reason why ‘influence wars’ among Great Powers have varied in

intensity from case to case is because the spheres of influence over which they fought

also varied in value for Great Powers. Some spheres of influence are more important to a

Great Power’s security than others. As a result Great Powers will be willing to fight

harder for some spheres of influence than for others. What determines the worth of a

sphere of influence is what type of ‘national source of power’ is its basis. Some ‘national

sources of power’ are vital for a Great Power’s ‘self-help’ capability to fight an

‘existential war’; others are not. A Great Power will go to great lengths to defend spheres

of influence that impact the former but not the later.

It is the variation in the importance of the ‘national sources of power’ that form

the basis of a sphere of influence, which determines the variation in intensity among the

great-power wars over spheres of influence. And that variation of value is defined by the

interaction of the ‘national sources of power’, spheres of influence, and the ability of a

state to fight an ‘existential war’.4

4 A state unable to fight an existential war is unable to unconditionally guarantee the existence and security of it’s legitimizing

constituent. It thus is always in danger of internal challenges to its legitimacy. Minor powers meet this need through alliances.

Great Powers must rely though on self help. These self help capabilities though also constitute the offensive potential of a

state, see John Mearsheimer ,The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Norton 2003 pp 30, 32-36


Establishing a broad theory on the variation of intensity among great-power wars

will enrich the I.R. literature on war, further validating broad theories of war. It would

supply students, scholars and policy makers alike with a powerful predictive and

explanatory tool. This tool will be able to produce hypothesis on the possible intensity of

future war among Great Powers and explain a significant amount of past great-power

wars that until now were studied in isolation. It will do this with a single overarching

broad theory that can cover cases across time and independently of shifts in the number

of Great Powers and technology. This theory is also compatible with extant theories of

war since they could explain why Great Powers would fight a total war over spheres of

influence that do not have an impact on their ability to fight ‘existential wars’.

The next section will define concepts and assumptions crucial to my theory like,

Great Powers, spheres of influence, war and ‘national sources of power’. It also contains

a quick historical survey that will show that indeed Great Powers have fought over

spheres of influence. Section three contains a review of the available I.R theories of war,

which will establish their inadequacy on the question of variation in intensity among

great-power wars. Section four explores the relationship among ‘national sources of

power’, the ability of Great Powers to fight ‘existential war’, spheres of influence, and

how the interaction of these three elements helps explain the variation in intensity among

great-power wars. From this explanation I extract three hypotheses of Great Power

behavior. The predictions that these hypothesis create are then tested in section five with

the use of the Crimean War, and the Pacific War during the Second World War as case

studies. After that I briefly look at the impact of the nuclear revolution on the theory, and

finish with conclusions and proposals for future research.

2. Concepts and Assumptions


The purpose of this section is to define the concepts and assumptions that are

central to my theory.

War is the use of organized physical violence by one society on another in order

to compel the opponent to do one’s will.5 The intensity of war varies but essentially two

different broad levels exist. A war is either a limited war or a total war. These are not so

much set points on a line, but rather parts of a continuum of intensity. Limited wars vary

in intensity among themselves, and so do total wars. But all limited wars share something

similar that makes them different than all total wars, which also share a similarity. What

limited wars have similar among them, and different from total wars, is the military

objective of the two opponents.

A limited war is any kind of war where the objective is to defeat an opponent by

depriving its active military forces of the ability to win, without destroying its society.6

The most intense limited war is a war of military eradication were the objective is not

simply to deny objectives to the opponent’s active military but completely destroy it thus

leaving his society defenseless and unable to pursue its war goals. That said if the target

society decides to sacrifice additional resources in order to continue to fight, then the

opponent in seeking victory has to target the enemy society’s moral, economic and

military potential that permits continued military resistance, even after the active army

has been nullified. The target now is the potential and latent power of a state.7 This then

is the realm of total war which at its rare extreme can take the form of the genocidal

eradication of the opposing society. Examples of limited war were the two first Wars of

German Unification, while examples of total war were the Franco-German war of 1871

and the German-Soviet war during the Second World War.

5 Karl von Clausewitz ,On War,, Princeton University Press, 1989 page 75

6 Παναγίωτης Κονδύλης ,Θεωρία του Πολέμου, Θεμέλιο 1999(Panayotis Kondylis,Theory of War, Themelio 1999) page 136.

Kondylis has done a lot of scholarly work on Clausewitz, especially concerning a clausewitzian definition of limited and total

war, as well as the clausewitzian foundations of the Soviet military doctrine. 7 Ibid 159


The intensity of war is a complex concept made up of, 1) the rate at which a state

expends available military power, and 2) the rate at which civilian assets are transformed

to military ones. The higher these rates are the more intense the war is.

A Great Power is a state that can fight a total war against any other state in the

international system, be able to hold its ground in such a war, and have a possibility of

victory.8 Historically Great Powers are very hard to defeat when they fight total wars.

Their defeat typically demands a coalition war, in which at least one other great power is

fighting on the coalition side. Additionally a Great Power has the economic, military and

political capabilities to try to influence the actions of other states and create spheres of

influence to shape the world around it and actively does so.9

Spheres of Influence (SoI) are defined by Paul Keal as determinate geographic

regions beyond the core territory of a Great Power ‘within which that Power exerts a

predominant influence, which limits the independence or freedom of action of states

within’.10

A Great Power decides how states within its SoI are to interact with it and

among themselves; who is right or wrong in disputes; and decides how the states within

the sphere of influence interact with those outside it, especially other Great Powers.

Spheres of influence provide a dominant Great Power with significant leverage over other

states and additional resources for fighting ‘existential wars’, while depriving its rivals

8 See Kenneth Waltz Theory of International Politics McGraw Hill 1979 pp 192, 194 - 195, John Mearsheimer The Tragedy of

Great Power Politics Norton 2001 page 5, Robert Gilpin War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge 1981 page 30,

Hedley Bull The Anarchical Society, A Study of Order in World Politics Columbia University Press 1977 pp 194 -223, Robert

Pastor A Century's Journey Basic Books 1999 Chapter 1 and Jack Levy War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495 - 1975

The University Press of Kentucky 1983 pp 10 - 19 9 A recurrent problem in the literature is what state is coded as a Great Power and what not. States that have continental power

projection capabilities like Great Britain in the 18th and 19

th centuries and Russia form the 18

th century onwards are not the

problem. The problem is the population of states that are typically called major regional powers. These states can essentially

fight a total war with a Great Power and still have a chance of survival, who have power projection capabilities that permit

them to attempt creating regional spheres of influence and try blocking the interference of Great Powers but which have no

ability to harm a Great Powers core territory. Depending on how one codes “regions” the U.S in the 19th century, Austria

Hungary throughout it’s history, Imperial China in the 1880’s-1890s and Japan from the 1890s to 1945 populate this class of

powers. For the purpose of this study Major Regional Powers able to contest regional spheres of influence with a Great Power

at significant levels of war intensity are coded as Great Powers. 10

A core territorial area of a state is the area within which resides the constituency in the name of whose survival the state

legitimates its existence. The constituency can be a nation, a class, a religious group, a dynasty or any social group. From this

constituency the state draws its reason d’ etat. For the definition of sphere of influence look at Paul Keal ,Unspoken Rules and

Superpower Dominance, St. Martin's Press New York 1983 page 15


from access to these resources. This makes spheres of influence an important tool in

international politics and states willing to fight over them.

The degree of exclusivity of a sphere of influence indicates how ‘open’ or

‘closed’ it is. The more open a sphere of influence is the more able the dominant power is

to accommodate the interests of other powers and share the benefits derived from the

sphere’s existence. The more closed a sphere of influence is, the less able or willing a

dominant power is to accommodate the interests of other powers.

‘National sources of power’ (NSoP) are material and ideational attributes that

expand the range of actions available to a state in seeking security. The more options a

state has the more secure it is. Security hinges on a state’s ability to fight and hold its

ground in an ‘existential war’, because losing such a war may destroy the state. It follows

that the richer in NSoP a state is, the better able it is to fight an ‘existential war’. Great

Powers also use their relative advantage in one or more of the NSoP to create spheres of

influence. Expanding on concepts put forward by Robert Gilpin and Antonio Gramsci, I

posit that there are four ideal types of NSoP, territoriality, internal mobilization, market

influence and ideological hegemony.11

All the NSoP can be used by Great Powers to create spheres of influence but only

territoriality and internal mobilization have a decisive impact on state ability to wage

‘existential war’. Consequently Great Powers will go to great lengths to defend spheres of

influence based on and infleuncing territoriality and internal mobilization. This happens

because if such a sphere of influence is lost then these NSoP will erode and therefore

undermine a Great Power’s ability to fight and survive an ‘existential war’. Such a

relationship arises because territoriality and internal mobilization contain important

military resources like geographical areas, raw natural resources, population, industry,

11

Robert Gilpin War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge 1981 pp 36-37, 107, 125, Antonio Gramsci, Letters from

Prison, University Press, New York ,1994, Volume I pp 127,271, Volume II pp 169,171-172


and government infrastructure. Market control and ideological hegemony, on the contrary

do not contain factors important to state survival and so lack such an impact.

Nevertheless market control and ideological hegemony do permit a Great Power

to influence other states, and therefore can help it avoid an ‘existential war’.

Consequently spheres of influence tied to or influencing market control and ideological

hegemony may merit a limited war. However, they do not merit a total war since their

loss doesn’t have a significant impact on a state’s ability to fight and survive an

‘existential war’.

After establishing the concepts and assumptions that are crucial to my theory I

will do a quick historical survey to show that Great Powers have indeed fought over

spheres of influence.12

Taking the year 1815 as my starting point, and 1945 as my final

point, it is evident that a large part of great-power wars were fought over spheres of

influence.13

This claim is based on looking at great power objectives for starting the war.

We can do this by looking at the character of the peace treaties, which should correlate to

the objectives for which war was initiated. Any great-power war that ended with major

territorial redistributions of the core territorial area of a state, or its subjugation was not a

war over spheres of influence alone.14

For such extreme peace terms can only have

resulted either from an initial will to wage existential war, or from a change of the

character of the war. Any great-power war that ended with a peace that left core territorial

areas intact but created changes in peripheral areas that were controlled by the

vanquished or a change in the political role of the belligerents was a war over spheres of

influence.

12

For overviews of Great Power war see Jack Levy ,War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495 – 1975, The University

Press of Kentucky 1983, C.J Bartlett ,The Global Conflict; The international Rivalry of the Great Powers, Longman 1994.

Also extremely useful is Matthew Melko ,General War Among Great Powers in World History ,The Edwin Mellen Press

2001. Melko’s study focus is not Great Power wars per se but what he terms General Wars, a civilization concept very close to

what Gilpin would consider as wars of system change. 13

This is less of an arbitrary point then usually believed. 1815 saw the end of the Napoleonic Wars that permitted Russia and

Great Britain to expand their activities on a global level thus fueling the creation of the unified international system of today. I

chose 1945 as an ending point, as bipolarity and the nuclear revolution produced systems change again. 14

Essentially any territory that a state did not gain by the Congress of Vienna.


Table 2 Great Power Wars 1815-1945

War Great Power

Opponents

Loser Initiator

objective

Change of Core

Territorial Area

Change of Periphery territory or

role

Italian

Unification 1854

France-Austrian

Empire

Austrian

Empire

Influence No (no change in

pre 1815

territories)

Yes ( Loss of influence in Italian

States)

Crimean War France, Great

Britain-Russia

Russian

Empire

Influence No (no change in

pre 1815

territories)

Yes (Loss of role in Concert of

Europe and influence in Orient)

Opium Wars*15 Britain, France -

China

China Influence No (loss of

peripheral

territories,

limitations but

not abolition of

sovereignty)

Yes (Loss of Hegemon Status)

Seven Weeks

War

1866

Prussia-Austrian Austrian

Empire

Infleunce No Yes (Loss of influence in German

States)

Franco –

German War

1871

France- Prussia and

German States

France Influence Yes Yes (Yes loss of influence in

German States and Great Power

status)

Sino*-French

War

1888-1889

France- China France Infleunce No Yes (Blocking of expansion of

French influence from Indochina

into Southern China)

Sino*-Japanese

War 1895

China-Japan China Infleunce No Yes (Loss of traditional influence in

Korea)

Russo-Japanese

War

Russia- Japan Russia Infleunce No Yes ( Blocking and loss of influence

in Korea)

World War One Entante- Central

Powers

Central

Powers

Existential Yes Yes

World War Two

Europe

Allies- Axis Powers Axis powers Existential Yes Yes

World War Two

Pacific

Allies-Japan Japan Infleunce Yes Yes

Moreover, Paul Keal in his book the Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance

(1983) analyses how the United States and the Soviet Union formed and managed their

spheres of influence, a concept implicit in the Yalta agreements. Consequently both the

historical record and theoretical literature show that at least since 1815 Great Powers are

interested in spheres of influence and make them the prize of wars fought among them

and the subject of peace treaties.

3. The inadequacy of the extant the literature

A survey of the existent literature in International Relation’s theory on the causes

of war shows that essentially three broad groups of theories exist. First there are the

power-transition theories of war that encompass the theories of Robert Gilpin, A.F.K

15

*China is a borderline case as a Great Power from 1830 to 1895. But she is unquestionably a Major Regional Power that

tried and sometimes succeeded in blocking the influence of other regional major powers or Great Powers (Sino-Franco Wars

of 1880s). Since her role is crucial in the Far East and since the whole area was undergoing system change as evident by large

upheavals like the Taiping and Bakumatsu events, I will for now code it as a Great Power.


Organski and Dale Copeland.16

Then there is the rationalist theory of war argued by

James Fearon and others.17

Sharing some concepts with the rationalist theory of war are

the offence-defense theories of war as argued by writers like Robert Jervis and Steven

Van Evera.18

As noted in the introduction all three theories put forward interesting

arguments on the causes of war and especially great-power war. But the question I ask is

whether they say anything about the variation in intensity among great-power wars.

The power-transition theories of war argue that changes in the relative power

among states lie at the center of the causes of war. Three general models are out there.

The first and classical one is the A.F.K Organski, updated by the same and Lemke. War

among Great Powers is the result of differential growth rates that by creating parity or

near parity of relative power permit rising powers to challenge previous predominant

powers over the control and character of the international order. Robert Gilpin expanded

the model using ‘expected utility’. He argued that great-power war happens when a rising

challenger is able to attain near parity with a dominant power, as a consequence of the

declining ‘expected utility’ of the international order for the latter, and so be able to

challenge it. Finally, Dale Copeland argued that while deferential growth rates and power

transition cause war, it is the declining dominant power and not the rising challenger that

initiates preventive conflict in order to stop the negative trends.

The power-transition theory of war is unable to explain variation in the intensity

among great-power wars. A.F.K Organski and Lemke only care about wars that are by

definition total wars. For them Power Transition will lead either to major war or no war.

Limited war is not a possibility. The same bias characterizes Robert Gilpin’s Hegemonic

War concept. Wars among Great Powers will be large intense conflicts with crucial

16

Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge 1981, A.F.K. Organski ,World Politics, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

1968, Dave Copeland, The Origins of Major War, Cornell University Press 2001 17

James D. Fearon ,Rationalist Explanations of War, International Organization Vol.49, No 3 Summer 1995 18

Stephen Van Evera ,Causes of War, Cornell University Press 1999, Robert Jervis, Cooperation Under the Security

Dilemma, World Politics, Vol. 30 No. 2


consequences for the international system. But as noted above some limited wars among

Great Powers had crucial consequences as well on international order. Dale Copeland

while noting that dominant powers interested in preventing negative relative power trends

can choose between war or the initiation of crises, once more equates total war or high

intensity war with his preventive war, not considering the possibility of limited war.

The rationalist theory of war as put forth by James Fearon and others, argues that

the main cause of war is the inability of states to find an optimal bargaining position that

would lead to a peaceful resolution of all conflicts.19

This happens because of imperfect

communication and the existence of private information which creates bargaining

incentives to misrepresent truth, the existence of indivisible issues on which no bargain

can be made, and commitment problems that cast doubt on the validity of present

agreements for the future. These factors create a ‘fog’ which leads states to misperceive

the costs of peace and war and choose to go to war even if peace was a better option

because they wrongly perceive peace as the worst option.

Fearon is almost completely silent on the matter of variation in intensity among

great-power wars. Nowhere does he posit why any war might be limited or rise to the

levels of total war. To a point we can infer that the more indivisible an issue is the more

probable a war is, and the more intense a war will be. Unfortunately, Fearon does not

provide an answer on what defines the indivisibility of an issue and thus the possible

intensity of a war over it. More recent scholarship by Powell argues that in truth only

informational problems, and commitment problems can explain war.20

In the case of

commitment problems war happens either because of rapid shifts in the distribution of

power that lead states to renege on agreements, or because states perceive the costs of

war as cheaper then those of deterrence. While this new formulation can explain

19 Charles Galser, Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self Help, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95),

pp. 50-90. and The Security Dilemma Revisited, World Politics, Fiftieth Anniversary Special Issue, Vol. 50, No. 1 (October

1997), pp.171-201 20

Robert Powell, War as a Commitment Problem, International Organization 60, Winter 2006, pp 169-203


prolonged wars, it still doesn’t explain why a war will be more intense then another. At

the center of commitment problems there still remains the question of indivisible issues,

otherwise why would states care if someone reneges on an agreement? And invisible

issues are the crucial concept that explains variation in intensity among great-power wars.

Still neither Fearon nor Powell offers an explanation of why an issue is indivisible.

Finally the offense-defense theories of war as argued by Robert Jervis see the

cause of war in the dominance of the offense over the defense. When technological,

geographic, or political factors make it easier for a state to conquer territory than it is to

defend it, conflicts and confrontations that would have been contained by defense

dominance will flare to full fledged wars. Stephen Van Evera extended the theory by

arguing that offense dominance is not a necessary condition for war-the perception of its

existence is sufficient to cause war.

The offence-defense theories initially say nothing on the variation of intensity

among great-power wars, equating defense dominance with peace, and offense

dominance with war. While not axiomatically equating war with total war they are not

providing any clear way of why wars might vary in intensity. One can infer that the

technological level of the belligerents will define the intensity of war but such an

inference is problematic for three reasons. First, this says nothing on why wars among

countries at the same technological level will differ in intensity. Secondly, the theory fails

to explain variation in the intensity of great-power wars within offense or defense

dominated eras, when the two opponents were of comparable technology. Finally it fails

to explain why there is still variation of intensity between wars in offense and defense

dominated eras, when the opponents have the same technological level.

In a nutshell all of the dominant theories of war have little to say on the variance

of intensity among wars. They seem to rely on the truism that a war’s intensity is dictated


by the issue at stake. While this is logical it is inadequate to create a causal relationship.

A testable answer must be given to the question why one issue will lead to total war and

why another will lead to limited war even when the protagonists are the same. The

escalation-spiral studies of the cold war cannot help because although they admirably

explain why a specific war might escalate from a limited conflict to a total war they do

not provide an answer of why one war will be limited and another total and they are tied

to the nuclear age. The main task of my theory in this thesis then is to provide a testable

answer to the question of why one great-power war is limited and another total.

4. National Sources of Powers and Spheres of Influence.

Great Powers use their relative advantage in one or more of the four NSoP to

create spheres of influence. States fight over spheres of influence, exactly because they

impact the NSoP tied to them. The variation in intensity among great-power wars over

spheres of influence can be traced to the variation of the importance that great powers

attribute to those spheres of influence, which in turn depends on how important the

national sources of power affected by the sphere of influence are to the state. This in turn

is tied to whether those NSoP affect or not a state’s self-help capabilities. The four NSoP

are territoriality, internal mobilization, market control, and ideological hegemony.

21Technology changes the efficiency of each one, making some preferable to others at

specific moment of time, depending on the technological environment.

Territoriality or territorial control is the oldest NSoP and continues to constitute

a part of a Great Power’s attributes.22

It encompasses the control of landmass and water

bodies as well as the raw material resources and population that reside on them. The

21

The concept of ‘national sources of power’ is inspired by Robert Gilpin’s phases of state expansion coded as territorial,

industrial and market system. Where we diverge is that while for Gilpin one phase is replaced by the other due to technology,

my argument is that the four “national sources of power” are always present. Thanks to Kevin Narizny for pointing this out to

me. 22

Robert Gilpin ,War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge 1981 pp 36-37, 107, 125


range of control begins at the absolute level of a state’s legitimate monopoly on the use of

armed force over its core territorial area and extends from such arrangements as

occupations, colonies, leased basing or economic exploitation rights to tight military

alliances. The defining factor is that only the controlling state has the right or capability

to use the territory for military purposes and determine the rules of usage governing it.

Spheres of influence created by territoriality greatly augment a Great Powers self-

help capability by providing increased ability to field mass armies, strategic depth,

control of transportation routes, and independence in raw resources. In the same time it is

very hard to accommodate the interests of other states within them. Classical examples

constitute the ancient and continental empires.

However the importance of territoriality as an NSoP has been changed by the

Industrial Revolution.23

Internal Mobilization, the ability of a great power to efficiently

mobilize and exploit the resources available in its territory, trumped extent of territory.

Internal Mobilization describes a state’s capacity to exploit the resources available to it

and how well it can use industry and organization to multiply the benefit conferred by

them. It encompasses economic and bureaucratic efficiency, population productivity,

industrial production capacity, technological innovation, ideational mobilization and

education of the population, war fighting efficiency and social stability. A useful measure

is A.F.K Organski’s Political Development Index24

.

Spheres of Influence tied to internal mobilization augment self-help capabilities

significantly more then those based on territoriality. The reason for this is that they do so

more cost-effectively since with less territory a state can produce more power. Spheres of

Influence tied to internal mobilization tend to take the form of areas dominated by an

industrial power, where the economic life of the other polities is tied to the dominant

23

Robert Gilpin ,War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge 1981 pp 24,33-34,71,80-81,118, 170-171, 123-126, 132,181-

182,208, 218,233 24

A.F.K Organski and Kulger, The War Ledger, 1968, see pages 72 – 83


power’s industrial capacity. Unlike the spheres of influence of territoriality, which

primarily concern themselves with power projection, raw materials, and the exploitation

of military manpower, those of internal mobilization are characterized by a concentrated

effort to fashion the economic and social development of the dominated polities in

service of augmenting the mobilization ability of the dominant polity. The heyday of

Imperialism from 1880-1945 was characterized by such spheres of influence.

Market Influence is an NSoP based on a developed commercial system between

states. Modern economic and technological progress has led to the creation of what

Gilpin calls the ‘global market system’, essentially a global sphere of influence for whose

dominance Great Power’s now compete.25

Market Influence is essentially a state’s ability

to aggregate resources and political influence from economic relationships with other

states. Of all the NSoP it is the cheapest to create and the hardest to retain predominance

in. Crucial components are a state’s monetary health and abundance of economic factors

that permit it to create a surplus that can be used in trade. A state uses Market Influence

to change the rules of trade and the behavior of its trading partners in such a way as to

maximize the benefits it reaps. Unlike territoriality or internal mobilization, market

control indirectly influences a state’s self help capabilities. It confers though a lot of

political influence on the behavior of other states.

Spheres of Influence tied to market influence differ from those of internal

mobilization in that the dominant powers cares less for controlling the economic and

social development of the polities within the sphere, and more on controlling trade flows.

Ideological Hegemony finally is inspired from the concept of class ideological

hegemony from Gramsci.26

It encompasses the ability of a Great Power to use

25

Robert Gilpin ,War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge 1981 pp 24,56-59,83,138-139,173-178,233 26

Antonio Gramsci, Letters from Prison, University Press, New York ,1994, Volume I pp 127,271, Volume II pp 169,171-

172. Gramsci’s concept is different from my own in that his hegemony is tied to the material-economic reality of the world. It

legitimizes this reality, and reproduces that legitimacy. This can be the case for ideological hegemony as well, as a veneer of

legitimacy in stratified spheres of influence. But ideological hegemony can be existent by itself as well, indifferent to the


transnational ideologies in order to influence the behavior of states, and its ability to

legitimize actions that violate the sovereignty of a state to the offended state or other

actors. Great Powers do this by promoting the spread of a certain ideology in the

international system, controlling its discourse, and using force to protect the ideology’s

adherents. The ideology can be political or religious. By itself ideological hegemony does

not augment directly a state’s self – help capabilities but it does permit the influencing of

the behavior of other states.

The four NSoP are not used in isolation from each other. A state’s relative power

is the sum of all four. Consequently more then one can be used to create a sphere of

influence and be tied to it. This means that spheres of influence tend to be stratified and

that states see a hierarchy of NSoP within each sphere of influence. The mix in each

sphere of influence and the hierarchy among the national sources of power tied to it

depends on the general level of technology available to a state and the level of

interactions existent in the international system. For example territoriality requires neither

a high level of technology nor complex international relations to produce benefits.

Internal mobilization requires high levels of technology, but can still produce benefits in

a world of low International Relations. On the other hand market influence or ideological

hegemony require either a substantial technological level, deep international interactions,

or both. States are cost-averse actors and if the environment permits them to gain power

and security on the cheap they will do so. Accordingly while all sphere of influence are

the products of various mix of NSoP, extra systemic reasons will determine which one

dominates the mix.

This dominance of the character of a sphere of influence by a specific NSoP is

extremely important for determining the value that a sphere of influence has for a Great

material reality. Gramsci’s concept is an inspiration, but it is fundamentally different. Robert Gilpin ,War and Change in

World Politics, Cambridge 1981 pp 30, 199, 238-240


Power. This is because while all NSoP augment a state’s power, not all of them are

equally important for its self- help capability. As a result, the willingness of Great Powers

to go to war in order to defend spheres of influence or fight at high levels of intensity

changes from sphere to sphere depending on what is the predominant NSoP tied to the

sphere.

Of the four NSoP available to a state two, territoriality and internal mobilization

have a ‘dual nature’. They not only permit a state to influence and attempt to control the

international environment but, crucially, are also at the heart of a state’s self-help

capabilities and thus its ability to fight and survive an existential war. This happens

because as noted earlier territoriality and internal mobilization encompass resources that

are important for a state’s war fighting ability. Territoriality encompasses the available

military manpower of a nation, and the territory on which it will wage defense as well as

those resources needed to fuel the sinews of war. Internal mobilization encompasses the

industrial, organizational and bureaucratic skills and infrastructure that creates, mobilizes,

supplies and commands mass armies as well as those resources that permit a war

economy to function.

Market Influence and Ideological hegemony, while permitting a state to influence

the behavior of other states, do not reinforce directly a state’s self-help capability. Market

influence relies on the existence of trade relations that are usually substantially disrupted

by highly intense war. Ideological hegemony adds allies to a state’s side but does not

guarantee that they will remain there. Unlike self-help capabilities which a state controls,

ideological allies are more extraneous. Market Influence and Ideological hegemony are

‘non-dual nature’ NSoP, admirably suited for creating spheres of influence but less

effective in reinforcing self-help capabilities.


The fact that spheres of influence closely tied to dual-nature NSoP help increase a

state’s self-help capabilities does not mean that states necessarily prefer to create such

spheres of influence. While increased self-help capabilities are desirable, the cost in self-

help capabilities of creating and maintaining spheres of influence tied to dual-nature

NSoP is high. States are cost sensitive actors. If the technological level and the

complexity of international relations permit it, they will prefer to secure themselves by

using the cheaper influence generated by non dual-nature NSoP relying only, on their

core territory for self-help capabilities. But if the technological level is inadequate or the

international environment dangerous, then states will seek increased self-help capabilities

rather than just influence.

The consequence of the difference in nature among NSoP is that states are more

willing to fight wars and intensify wars in order to defend the dual-nature NSoP than in

order to protect the non-dual nature NSoP. This is because erosion in the first will lead to

a state being less able to fight successfully an existential war. Furthermore, war is a

costly enterprise and its cost is measured in self-help capabilities. The state expends in

war exactly those resources that it needs to fight an existential war. Since states are cost-

sensitive actors, they will be willing to lose such resources only when the war is over the

dual nature NSoP that produce those resources. This in turn affects Great Power policy

over spheres of influence.

States use their NSoP in order to create spheres of influence that in turn provide

them with additional levels of those NSoP. States also attempt to erode or destroy the

spheres of influence of other powers. They can do this in two ways. They can either try to

erode the sphere of influence alone, or also the dual nature NSoP on which the sphere of

influence is based. But eroding the dual-nature dual nature NSoP erodes a state’s self-

help capabilities, creating incentives for resistance. This is not the case of non-dual nature


NSoP. The character of non- dual nature NSoP, permits states to choose where they will

center their challenge in order to avoid maximum resistance. They can center on the

sphere of influence or the national source of power, or both. In the case of affected dual-

nature NSoP such a choice is impossible, as either option will lead to the same erosion of

self-help capabilities.

The Diagram below shows the causal logic of my theory.

After laying out my theory I now formulate three hypotheses on the relationship

between spheres of influence, national sources of power (NSoP), and the intensity of war.

Hypothesis 1: A state will be more willing to initiate war if its sphere of influence is tied

to the dual-nature NSoP than to non-dual nature NSoP.27

A Great Power facing a threat to a sphere of influence must decide between

negotiation and war, if it has not already been attacked. Crucial to this decision are the

expectations the Great Power has of the costs and benefits of each option. A great power

reacting to a threat seldom cares primarily about benefits. Instead it tries to minimize

costs. The nature of the NSoP tied to the sphere of influence will determine those

expectations.

27

In formulating this hypothesis I have drawn ideas from Robert Powell, War as a Commitment Problem, International

Organization 60, Winter 2006, pp 169-203


The costs of war incorporate the amount of dual-nature NSoP expended to fight a

war. They also incorporate a possibility of defeat that may incur further costs in the form

of the loss of the sphere of influence, and the erosion of the dual-nature NSoP tied to it.

Against these costs a state weights the possible benefits of war. This is a possibility of

victory, which by averting defeat can permit a state to avoid the additional costs from the

loss of the sphere of influence. It can also mitigate the costs in expended dual nature

NSoP by the use of reparations or exploitation of the defeated opponent. If the state sees

the possibility of victory as higher than the possibility of defeat the state will have

incentives to initiate war.

Because war still entails a loss of dual-nature NSoP expended in the war effort, a

state will take into account the possible costs and benefits of negotiation, before choosing

war. Negotiation always contains possible costs, since it demands various levels of

accommodation the demands of challengers. This means an assured cost measured in the

erosion of the sphere of influence and the NSoP tied to it. The magnitude of that cost is

determined by the nature of the NSoP. The benefit of a negotiated settlement is that it

permits a state to avoid the certain loss of dual-nature NSoP that war fighting entails.

If the NSoP are dual nature then a state will have little incentive to avoid war.

Peace will mean an assured loss in self-help capabilities, and thus a weakening of the

state’s ability to fight an existential war. True, war entails expending such self-help

capabilities. But if the sphere of influence is retained, the losses can be recuperated.

Besides, self-help capabilities are an indivisible issue and no state would give them up

without a fight. The state can never be sure that the consequences of a negative

negotiated settlement over dual-nature NSoP will not be worst than those of war. In

addition, there is no guarantee, due to anarchy, that the challenger will not build on its


diplomatic victory to launch an existential threat against the now weaker state. Between

two assured losses the state will chose the one that involves less uncertainty.

This is not the case with non-dual nature NSoP. In this case, an erosion of the

sphere of influence tied to such NSoP does not spillover to the state’s self-help

capabilities. Since the ability to fight existential war is not at stake, the state will have an

incentive to bargain and avoid the costs in self-help capabilities that war entails. While it

would still like to limit the damage done, the state would be highly reluctant to sacrifice

self-help capabilities over a sphere of influence that will not help it regain them.

Furthermore, a ‘negative’ peace does not erode the state‘s ability to defend itself in an

existential war. Even if the aggressor decides to take advantage of the peace to launch

war, the defender will still be able to defend.

Since a challenge to a sphere of influence based on dual-nature NSoP implies

higher costs of peace it is more likely to lead to war. Consequently a challenge to spheres

of influence tied to non-dual nature NSoP is more likely to be settled peacefully.

Hypothesis 2: War between Great Powers over spheres of influence tied to the dual-

nature NSoP will tend to be more intense than wars over spheres of influence tied to non-

dual nature NSoP.

If a Great Power wishes to erode or destroy another Great Power’s sphere of

influence that is grounded on a dual-nature NSoP, it will have to attack that NSoP.

Considering that those same NSoP are tied to a state’s self-help capabilities and its ability

to fight an existential war, the consequence is that the aggressor will be attacking the

defender’s core territory, and its self-help capabilities. Furthermore, the attack will create

an existential threat for the defender, even if the aggressor has no intention of posing such

a threat, because the attack will compromise the defenders self-help capabilities. While


states do not always worry about the possibility of existential war, they will be unwilling

to tolerate being weakened in their ability to fight such a war. This in turn leads to a

willingness to intensify the defense effort thus further raising the level of war intensity.

States will be willing to escalate a war over spheres of influence tied to dual-

nature NSoP because if they lose they suffer two losses; they lose the sunk costs of war in

expended dual-nature NSoP, and they suffer additional costs in these NSoP due to the

loss of the sphere of influence. A state controls its escalation costs. It seldom controls the

demands of a victor. And escalation can bring victory which can lead to avoiding the

losses of defeat, and mitigating the losses of war. As long as the costs of escalating are

seen as less then the costs of a peaceful negotiation or surrender, the state will escalate. In

the case of dual nature national sources of power, the costs of any peace eroding them is

always higher then the possible costs of escalation, except if the costs are destruction of

the state. When the NSoP are not dual nature, the costs of peace seldom are higher than

the costs of escalation. The state has less incentive to escalate the war and will fight a

limited war with the object of bringing the aggressor to negotiations.

Consequently, the intensity of wars over spheres of influence tied to the dual-

nature NSoP will be higher than that of wars over spheres of influence tied to non-dual

nature NSoP. As a result the intensity of Great Power influence wars will vary from war

to war. Since ‘existential wars’ are axiomatically near the concept of total war, the

variation in intensity among Great Power wars stems from the variance of the intensity

among Great Power influence wars.

One major caveat is that war and escalation dynamics might change the political

objective of one side. It might radicalize it to the point of changing the nature of the war

to an existential war. But this is not an automatic process and the state that will make the


crucial decision to escalate the war will be considering the cost/benefit analysis outlined

above.

Hypothesis 3: The higher the exclusivity of the sphere of influence the more likely it is

that it will spark a war, and the more likely that war is to escalate.

A great power challenges another great power’s sphere of influence for one of

two reasons. First, if a great power expects to fight an existential war with another great

power in the future, it may prepare for it by undermining the opponent’s ability to fight

such a war by challenging its spheres of influence. Alternatively a great power may

challenge a sphere of influence because it wishes to expand its influence in the

international system. While the first motive will lead to war, the second motive will not

necessarily do so. It all depends on how exclusive the sphere of influence is. If

exclusivity is high, the controlling state will have a hard time accommodating the

demands of the challenger, and war is more likely. If it is low then a bargaining space

exists. Of course, the controlling power can chose not to bargain. But more

fundamentally, the nature of the NSoP will determine how exclusive or not a sphere of

influence is, irrespective of the controlling state’s wishes.

Dual-nature NSoP are not easily divisible. Territoriality and Internal Mobilization

tend to create spheres of influence that are exclusive. It is hard for great powers to share

territory, military bases, populations, workforce, bureaucratic and military skills, and

scarce material resources. In this case the leeway for accommodation is scarce to non-

existent. What's more, the fact that these spheres of influence are tied with a state’s self-

help capabilities means that the state will generally be unwilling to accommodate a

challenger. More crucially, the very fact that such a sphere of influence is exclusive and

strengthens a state’s ability to win or fight an existential war will feed the security


dilemma, leading the challenging state to escalate its challenge. This in turn creates an

escalation spiral, which is likely to lead to war and then the intensification of war.

This is not the case with spheres of influence tied to non-dual nature NSoP.

Market Influence and Ideological Hegemony are more divisible and accommodation of

other Great Power interests is easier. The reason for this is that neither NSoP is directly

tied with a state’s self-help capabilities, which are indivisible. Thus, there exists a

bargaining space that the controlling state can use to cut a deal as long as a challenge is

not directed to the dominant power’s right to determine and influence the rules of conduct

within its sphere of influence. Since accommodation will not threaten a state’s self- help

capabilities, the costs for a defender deciding to accommodate a challenger are not

prohibitive. This willingness to bargain can dampen a challenger’s demands, since an

escalation of demands might lead the controlling state to close the sphere of influence. In

either case the defender has little to lose, as its self-help capabilities are not in danger. On

the other hand the challenger risks losing an opportunity to achieve its goals without

risking the costs of war.

The impact of exclusivity holds even for stratified spheres of influence. If the mix

of NSoP tied to the sphere of influence is part dual-nature then exclusivity will be high.

There is still some bargaining space if the dual-nature and non-dual nature NSoP can be

separated, but this is unlikely. If it does happen then the likelihood of war will be made

less as the ability to separate the dual-nature from the non-dual nature NSoP increases.

States will still fight for the first, but they will be willing to bargain for the second.

To summarize; dual-nature NSoP create spheres of influence that increase a

state’s self-help capabilities and its ability to fight and win an existential war. Such

spheres of influence are highly exclusive, and divisible issues are few, therefore creating

a more acute security dilemma and leading to a higher likelihood of war and more intense


wars. Non-dual nature NSoP lead to less exclusive spheres of influence that have less of

an impact on the self–help capabilities of states are characterized by low exclusivity and

more divisible issues. Consequently they lead to a lesser likelihood of war and less

intense wars.

This leads to the following predictions; Great Powers will avoid fighting over

‘open’ spheres of influence tied to non-dual NSoP; Great Powers will be more willing to

fight over ‘closed’ spheres of influence tied to non-dual nature NSoP but such wars will

be limited; and finally that Great Powers will be willing to fight over ‘closed’ spheres of

influence tied to dual-nature NSoP and such wars will be characterized by high intensity.

Case Studies

In this section I consider two case studies of great-power war over spheres of

influence. The first is the Crimean war of 1854-1855 between an alliance of Great Britain

and France against the Russian Empire. The second case study is the Pacific War of

1941-1945 between the Empire of Japan and the United States. In the first case study the

war remained limited. In the second case study the war escalated to the level of total war.

The two case studies test the last two predications from the previous section.

A test of the first prediction mentioned above would demand a detailed case study

about a great-power crisis over spheres of influence that did not lead to war. Possible case

studies are the Faschoda Crisis between France and Great Britain, the Venezuela Crisis

between Great Britain and the United States, the 1st and 2

nd Moroccan Crises, or the 1879

Crisis in the Eastern Question. But due to page limits, an interest in the effect of NSoP on

war escalation, and focus on the variation of intensity among great-power wars I will

have to do this test in an expanded paper. For now war, not peace is at the center of

attention.


The Crimean War

At its core the Crimean war was caused by fear of the increased influence of

Russia in post 1848 Europe as the self proclaimed guarantor of the European political and

social order.28

From 1849 to 1852 these fears were centered on Russian policy in the

Black Sea and Ottoman Empire.29

The weakness of the Ottoman Empire had made

Russia, Great Britain, and Austria extremely interested in its fate; the infamous Eastern

Question. For Russia and Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire acted as a buffer between

Russia’s Black Sea sphere of influence and Britain’s Mediterranean sphere of

influence.30

Of crucial importance for both was the question of who controlled the

Bosporus Straits and Constantinople. For Austria, the status quo in the Ottoman Empire

was tied to the European status quo, the question of nationalism, and the Danubian trade

routes.31

Russia, since the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, had a highly exclusive sphere of

influence based on market control and created through protectionist measures.32

This

sphere hinged on control of Dorbruja and the mouth of the Danube, which permitted

Russia to block the Danubian trade routes and redirect them to the port of Odessa. This

28

Norman Rich,Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale,University Press of New England, Hanover and London 1985 pp 1-

4, Trevor Royale, Crimea the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856 pp 7-9, L.C.B. Seaman, Causes of Crimean War, pp 2-4 and

A.J.P Taylor: End of the Holy Alliance 1852-1853 page 103, in The Origins of the Crimean War, Brison D. Gooch ed. D.C.

Heath and Company, Lexington ,Massachusetts, 1969( abbreviated from now own as OCW,1969) 29

Norman Rich,Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, 1985, pp 1-4, Vernon John Puryear, England, Russia, and the

Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut 1965, pp 4-12. Alexis Troubetzkoy,A Brief History of the

Crimean War: The causes and consequences of a medieval conflict fought in a modern age. Carroll & Graf Publishers, New

York, NY 2006, pp 6-8, 52-56, David Goldfrank,,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow, Essex 1994

pp 13-14, 51-52, 119 30

Norman Rich, 1985 pp 1-4, 7-10, 19-20, 27-30, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856,

Manchester University Press, New York, NY 1990 pp 3,5,Trevor Royale, pp 28,44-45, 88, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp, xi-xiv,

4-6, 7-12, 19-20, 27-28, 75-78, 82-83, 104, 125-128,346, -347, 379, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006 pp 6-8, 52-56, David

Goldfrank, 1994 pp 46, 119 31

Norman Rich, 1985 page 112, Andrew Lambert page 3, Trevor Royale 4-6, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 15-20, 132,135,

H.W.V. Temperley, Responsibilities for the Crimean War, in OCW, 1969 page 56, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp13-14 32

Norman Rich, Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, University Press of New England, Hanover and London 1985, pp

13-17,19-20, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856, Manchester University Press, New

York, NY 1990 pp 3,5, Vernon John Puryear, England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden,

Connecticut 1965, pp 4-6, 7-12, 19-20, 93, 104, 136-137, Alexis Troubetzkoy, A Brief History of the Crimean War: The

causes and consequences of a medieval conflict fought in a modern age. Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, NY 2006 pp

52-56, David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow, Essex 1994, pp 42,46,


made Odessa a great economic center. In addition, control of the Black Sea was crucial

for Russian industrial exports to Central Asia and the export of Ukrainian and Southern

Russian wheat, on which the Russian economy depended.33

But the Black Sea sphere of influence was also grounded on territoriality. This

was the result of the great fortress–port of Sebastopol, and Russia’s role as guarantor of

the Danubian Principalities which gave rights of military passage. Together, they

permitted Russia to project military power quickly towards the Bosporus.34

This military

presence not only defended the Russian Black Sea sphere of influence but permitted

Russia to exert influence in the Ottoman Empire and block any other Great Powers from

forcing the Straits of the Bosporus.

The Russo-Ottoman war of 1828-29 made Russia aware of Ottoman weakness.

Increased worry that other Great Powers would take advantage of such weakness, led

Russia to decide the expansion of its Black Sea sphere of influence into the Ottoman

Empire proper. Since outright conquest was out of the question as Great Britain and

Austria would oppose it, Tsar Nicholas I unleashed an era of diplomatic activity in the

Ottoman Empire. 35

Its aim was to build a sphere of influence as a buffer between the

Russian sphere of influence in the Black Sea and the interests of the other Great

Powers.36

The Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, and the treaty of Unkiar – Iskelessi in 1833

were the bedrocks of this policy.37

The main components of the budding Russian sphere

of influence in the Ottoman Empire were ideological hegemony, based on the Russian

33

Andrew Lambert The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856, 1990 page 3, Vernon John Puryear, England, Russia,

and the Straits Question 1844-1845, 1965, pp 75-77.83,93,104,136-137, David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War,

1994 page 42 34

Norman Rich, Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, 1985 27-33, Andrew Lambert, 1990, page 5, Trevor Royale 39,

Alexis Troubetzkoy, A Brief History of the Crimean War: The causes and consequences of a medieval conflict fought in a

modern age. 2006 page 132,David Goldfrank 1994 page 42, Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp 7-12, 27-28,187-188, 315,346-347 35

Norman Rich, 1985 pp 27-33, Trevor Royale pp 10-11, Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp 4-6, 7-12, Temperley 61-73 36

Norman Rich, Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, University Press of New England, Hanover and London

1985,pp13-17, 89-94, Trevor Royle, Crimea : the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856 ,New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000, pp 7-

9, Vernon John Puryear, England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut 1965, pp

4-12, 27-28 37

Norman Rich, Why the Crimean War, 1985 pp 13-20, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-

1855,1965 pp 4-6, 19-20, H.W.V. Temperley, Responsibilities for the Crimean War, in OCW, 1969, page 63,David Goldfrank

The Origins of the Crimean War , 1994, pp 42,46


claim of protectorate over Ottoman Christians, the Russian guarantee of the Ottoman

government, and territoriality stemming from the Russian power projection abilities in

order to assist or coerce the Sultan. 38

The Russians did not initially try to make their sphere in the Ottoman Empire

exclusive.39

This decision was spurred by fear of Austrian and British reaction and the

expectation that the Ottoman Empire would collapse.40

In that case there would be a

great-power division of spoils and the Russian sphere of influence would serve as the

basis for its exclusive spoils. Thus the Russians brought Austria and Great Britain into

their sphere of influence through the Treaty of Muchengraz, the Straits Convention of

1841 and the Nesselrode memorandum of 1844. This settlement gave Austria and Great

Britain the right to play freely in the Russian backyard.

The opening of the sphere of influence, however, eroded it. By 1848 Russia was

cognizant that Great Britain was trying to create its own sphere of influence in the

Ottoman Empire. The new aggressive eastern policy of France under Lois Napoleon

complemented the British challenge.41

Furthermore, Russia was alarmed by the

38

Norman Rich,1985, pp 19-20, Trevor Royle,2000, pp 19,27, Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp19-20, David Goldfrank,1994 page

42 39

Trevor Royle, 2000, page 21, Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp 4-6, 7-12,19-20,49,345, Alexis Troubetzkoy,A Brief History of the


York, NY 2006 pp 6-8,27-28, Alexander W. Kinglake, Transactions Which Brought on the War, in OCW, 1969 pp 21-22,

David Goldfrank, 1994 pp 46-47, 40

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 27-33, 89-94, C.E Vulliamy, Crimea The Campaign of 1854-1856, Jonothan Cape Thirty Beford

Square London Great Britain 1939 page 53, Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp 4-12,15-20,27-28,33-34,47-49,78,82,175,

AlexisTroubetzkoy, 2006, pp 3,6-8,27-28,56,103-106,108, Gavin B. Henderson, The Seymour Conversations, 1853, in The

Origins of the Crimean War, Brison D. Gooch ed. D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington ,Massachusetts, 1969 ,pp 13-15,

David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 46-47,119 41

On France see C.E Vulliamy, Crimea The Campaign of 1854-1856, Jonothan Cape Thirty Beford Square London Great

Britain 1939 page 31, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden,

Connecticut 1965 pp 197, 319, Alexis Troubetzkoy,A Brief History of the Crimean War: The causes and consequences of a

medieval conflict fought in a modern age. Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, NY 2006 pp 97-98, L.C.B. Seaman, Causes

of Crimean War pp 2-4, Emile Bourgeois, Early Years of the Second Empire: Crimean War Origins pp 43-44, F.A. Simpson,

Louis Napoleon and the Recovery of France: Crimean War Origins pp 81-82, and A.J.P. Taylor ,End of the Holy Alliance,

1852-1853 page 97 all in OCW, 1969. David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow,

Essex 1994 pp 13-14,93-94, On England see Trevor Royle, Crimea : the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000, pp 28,75 Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp27-28,76,118,198-188,303 Alexis Trubetzkoy, 2006

page 66, R.W. Seton-Watson, The Origins of the Crimean War pp 24-33,in OCW, 1969, David Goldfrank 1994, pp 46-47,75-

76,


willingness of the western powers to repeatedly violate the 1841 Straits Convention.42

Austria was either indifferent to Russia’s problems, or undermining Russian policy.43

By 1851, Russia acutely felt that her position had been compromised. The crucial

event was the Holy Places crisis of 1852 about religious authority in Jerusalem, instigated

by Louis Napoleon III, now emperor of France. The erosion of the position of the

Orthodox Church and the rise of Catholic and as a result of French influence, led Russia

to try and turn its budding sphere of influence in the Ottoman Empire into a highly

exclusive territoriality one.44

Russia initially did this diplomatically by dispatching Prince

Alexander Menshikov to Constantinople (Istanbul).45

The Russian attempt to solidify its Ottoman sphere of influence alarmed Great

Britain and Austria. Great Britain saw Russia’s sphere of influence in the Ottoman

Empire as part of the Great Game over Central Asia. While the British needed Russia to

defend the territorial status quo in Europe against French plans on Belgium, they were

not willing to see this status quo challenged in the Near East.46

The Russian attempt to

create a sphere of influence threatened the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire

which was crucial for British interests in the Mediterranean.47

It also threatened the

British market control sphere of influence in the Levant, which was based on the

Convention of Balta-Liman in 1838 and the close commercial relations between the

42

Vernon John Puryear, England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut 1965, pp

136-137,175, 187-188, 197, 279, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006 pp 97-98, Temperely 61- 73,David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 93-94 43


13-17, 112, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 4-6, 15-20, 23-24, 132, 135 -1 37, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 138-139, David

Goldfrank, 1994, pp 13-14 44

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 27-33, Vernon Puryear, 1965 pp 125-128, 203,242,319, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, 66,89-90,103-

106,Kinglake 19-20,Simpson 81-82, A.J.P Taylor 97, David Goldfrank , 1994, pp 75-76, 45

Norman Rich , 1985, pp 35-40, 53-59,Trevor Royle, 2000, pp 35,39,Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 203,235, 257, 268, Alexis

Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 103-106,117, Temperely 70, Taylor 98-99, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 131-133, 135, 148,155 46

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 1-4, 7-10, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp xi-xiv,190, 253, Trevor Royale 88, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006,

pp 52-56, Bell 35-37, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 46, 51-52 47

Trevor Royle, 2000, pp 28, 44-45 ,Norman Rich Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, University Press of New

England, Hanover and London 1985 pp 106-107, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845,

Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut 1965, pp 4-6, 76, 108, 315, David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman

Publishing, Harlow, Essex 1994 page 119


Ottoman Empire and Britain.48

British politicians feared Sebastopol as a loaded gun

aimed at Constantinople and control of the Straits, which would one day permit the

Russian naval ensign to fly in the Mediterranean.49

Additionally Russia’s coercive policy during the crisis, posed a challenge to

Ottoman territorial integrity. This raised the specter of France using Russian territorial

changes in the east as a pretext to change the territorial status quo in Belgium. This

threatened British interest. Britain decided to accommodate French interests in the Near

East by opposing Russia alongside them in order to avoid a war in Belgium and the

East.50

Austria, while not having a sphere of influence in the Ottoman Empire, was

alarmed by Russian moves for three reasons. First like Britain, Austria saw the territorial

integrity of the Ottoman Empire as part of the territorial status quo in Europe and

especially in Italy where France was a threat. Additionally, Austria feared the rise of

nationalism that the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire would bring.51

Second Austria

was hurt economically by the exclusive Russian sphere of influence in the Black Sea and

was against its expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean.52

On a more fundamental level

though, Austria feared Russian expansion. The Ottoman Empire was seen as the last

buffer that the Habsburgs had against vassalage to the Romanovs. The consequences of

Poland’s dissolution and Nicholas the I’s frankness about his plans for the

48

Trevor Royle, Crimea : the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856 , New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000, pp 44-45, Vernon

Puryear, 1965, pp 76, 91, 108, 118, 125-128, Alexis Troubetzkoy, A Brief History of the Crimean War: The causes and

consequences of a medieval conflict fought in a modern age. Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, NY 2006, pp 52-56,

David Goldfrank, The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow, Essex 1994, page 46 49

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 97-99, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856, Manchester

University Press, New York, NY 1990 pp xvi,xxi, 5,64, Royale 44-45, 75, 207, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 347, 356,360, 363,

Bell 35-37, David Goldfrank, 1994, page 196 50

Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 190, 196, 242, 244, 253, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 119-121 51

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 5-10, 102,112, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 138-139 52

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 13-17, 112, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 15-20, 132, 135-137, 326-327,David Goldfrank, 1994, pp

13-14,


dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, made the Austrians careful about Russia.53

Therefore Austria tried to stymie Russian aggrandizement by ‘grouping’ Russia rather

then fighting it.

Austria supported Russia in the East in order to have more control over Russian

policy.54

To do this Austria accepted the Polish partitions (as a diversion for Russia from

the weakened Ottoman Empire) and joined Russia in the 2nd

Russo- Turkish 1735-39, and

3rd

Russo – Turkish 1787-1791 wars. It also accepted Russian influence in the Ottoman

Empire.55

But by 1850 it was evident to foreign minister Buol and Emperor Francis-

Joseph, that ‘grouping’ had failed.56

Austria faced the future certainty of a war with the

more powerful Russia. French and British policy in 1852 permitted Austria to ‘buck pass’

a Russian war to Great Britain and France, only threatening to enter the war when Russia

was ready to capitulate in 1855.57

French policy in the crisis was driven by Napoleon the III’s wish to satisfy his

domestic Roman Catholic constituency and create a wedge in the Congress System

between Russia and England, in order to break it.58

The French role in the initiation of the

war was to link events in the Ottoman Empire with the threat of an end to the status quo

53


61-65, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut

1965, pp 4-6, 15-20, David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow, Essex 1994, pp167-168 54

Norman Rich, 1985, page 112, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 15-20,23-24, H.W.V. Temperley, Responsibilities for the Crimean

War, in OCW, 1969 page 56, Sorel, Albert, The Eastern Question in the 18th Century: The Partition of Poland and the Treaty

of Kainardji. Methuen & CO. London, UK 1898 page 76 and Roider, Karl, Austria's Eastern Question 1700-1790. Princeton

University Press. Princeton, New Jersey 1982 page 110, 113,114-115 55

Luard, Evan, The Balance of Power. St. Martin’s Press. New York, New York 1992 pp 201-203, Roider, Karl, Austria's

Eastern Question 1700-1790. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey 1982 chapters Five pages 71-90 and Ten

pages 169-188 56

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 13-17, 57

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 112,123, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856, Manchester

University Press, New York, NY 1990, pp 197, 296, Trevor Royle, Crimea : the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000, page 310, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 135, 338, David Goldfrank , 1994, pp 167-168, 237-

238, 257, L.C.B. Seaman, Causes of Crimean War, in OCW,1969 pp 2-4, On the concept of ‘buck-passing’ see John

Mearsheimer The Tragedy of Great Power Politics Norton 2001 58

See Norman Rich Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, University Press of New England, Hanover and London 1985

on Napoleon seeking to break the Congress pp 7-10, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-

1856, Manchester University Press, New York, NY 1990, page 65, C.E Vulliamy, Crimea The Campaign of 1854-1856,

Jonothan Cape Thirty Beford Square London Great Britain 1939, page 31, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the

Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut 1965, page 319, Alexis Troubetzkoy,A Brief History of the


York, NY 2006 pp 97-98, F.A. Simpson, Louis Napoleon and the Recovery of France: Crimean War Origins , in OCW, 1969

pp 81-82, on Napoleon seeking internal goals see Vernon Puryear, 1965, page 242,Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 89-90,

Alexander W. Kinglake, Transactions Which Brought on the War pp 19-20, H.W.V. Temperley, Responsibilities for the

Crimean War, page 64, A.J.P. Taylor ,End of the Holy Alliance, 1852-1853 page 97, in OCW, 1969.


in Belgium and Italy, hence linking Austria, Great Britain and France in opposing

Russia59

. Once the war started French war aims were limited to keeping the British

alliance and gaining martial glory.60

Napoleon’s more grandiose aims of redrawing the

European map were never made official.61

The fall of Sevastopol to the allies fulfilled

French war aims fulfilled. France facilitated lenient peace terms for Russia, ending the

war and rendering the fall and disarmament of Sebastopol null against British

objections.62

Great Britain, Austria, and France stymied Russia’s attempt at diplomatic

coercion. When Russia reacted by occupying the Danubian Principalities, it was their

support that led the Ottomans into declaring war. Britain and France joined the Ottomans

in the war while Austria coerced Russia out of the Danubian Principalities and tied down

Russian armies with the threat of intervention.63

Once war began, the war aims of Russia

and Great Britain were defined by their spheres of influence. Austria’s behavior in the

war as well was tied to the character of the Russian sphere of influence in the Black Sea.

Russia’s initial war aims were to solidify its influence in the Balkans and Danube

by ending the Sultan’s sovereignty over the Danubian Principalities and giving

independence to Serbia.64

Austria coerced Russia out of these goals by forcing it to

59

Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 190, 242, 244, 253, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 119-121, David Goldfrank, 1004, pp 101-104 60

Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp 65, 214, 228,314, Vernon Puryear, 1965, page 319, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, page 137,

David Goldfrank, 1994, page 262 61

Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 97-98, 147, Temperely believes that the Russians believed that Napoleon wanted a Crisis but

not war, see H.W.V. Temperley, Responsibilities for the Crimean War, page 64 in OCW, 1969 so does Simpson in F.A.

Simpson, Louis Napoleon and the Recovery of France: Crimean War Origins pp 81-82, in OCW,1969 62

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 140-145,155-160,185-188, Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp 214,228,236-238,329,332-333, Trevor

Royle, Crimea : the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856 New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000. pp 434-435,480, Vernon Puryear,

1965, pp 394,419,422, 424, David Goldfrank , 1994, page 251 63

David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 123-124. 212-214 On Britain and the decision to join France see Norman Rich, 1985, pp 85,99,

Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 187-188,190,196,203,2167,242,244,253, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 119-121 , on Austria and

the fear for Italy see Norman Rich, 1985, pp 102,112, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 138-139, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp

237-238, on the Austrian Ultimatum about the Danubian Principalities see Norman Rich, 1985, pp 61-65, 123, 140-145,

Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp 88,197,208, Trevor Royale 116,170, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 15-20,135,136-137,342, Alexis

Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 118,132,138-140,158,257, 64


35-40,108-111, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856, Manchester University Press, New

York, NY 1990, pp 11-12, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books,

Hamden, Connecticut 1965, pp 346, 379, Alexis Troubetzkoy,A Brief History of the Crimean War: The causes and

consequences of a medieval conflict fought in a modern age. Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, NY 2006, pp 103-

106,132,134, David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow, Essex 1994 page 234.


evacuate the Principalities. Russian war aims then changed to avoiding a great anti-

Russian coalition war by keeping Prussia and Austria out of the war, preserving its army,

and guarding its territorial integrity.65

Russia quickly placed territorial integrity above its

spheres of influence. Accordingly, it concentrated most of its army on the borders with

Sweden, Prussia and Austria, rather then on the war zone in the Crimean and Caucasus.

Military gains, like Kars in Armenia, were seen as means to block allied territorial

demands.66

Russia tried to accommodate Austria to keep it out of the war, and was

willing to negotiate away any part of its spheres of influence that did not directly affect

its military land power, even Sebastopol’s military significance.

Russia accepted defeat after (i) British successes in the Baltic opened the way for

an allied threat to Saint Petersburg, (ii) Sebastopol fell, and (iii) Sweden and Austria

threatened to enter the war on the allied side. As long as the war remained centered in the

Black Sea, Russia did not face an existential threat as the allies could not strike at the

center of the Russian government, or destroy the Russian field army. But the threatened

widening of the war to encompass all of Russia’s European borders could lead to military

defeat and territorial losses of such magnitude that the Russian empire would be unable to

guarantee its existence. Russia sought a peace that would leave its territory and army

safe, sacrificing its sphere of influence.67

Also Russia prepared for a total war if the allies

decided to pursue maximalist goals.68

Fortunately for Russia, neither France nor Austria

wanted a total war, and pressured Britain to accept negotiations that led to the Peace of

Paris.

65

Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp xix,231-233,, 251-252,, 298-299, Trevor Royle, Crimea : the Great Crimean War, 1854-1856

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000, pp 116, 146, 309,336, 406-407, Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 345, Alexis Troubetzkoy,

2006, pp 140, 191-193,253,271,299, David Goldfrank, 1994, page 257 66

Norman Rich, 1985, page 139, Trevor Royle, 2000, page 479, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 293-294 67

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 123, 140-145,176-181, Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp xix, 73,181,204,293, Lambert dissents on

Austrian influence, see pp 297-299,316,318, Trevor Royle, 2000, pp 116,309,336,384,406-407,462, Vernon Puryear, 1965,

pp 338,341,364,408,Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, page 299, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 257,262,265,286 68

Norman Rich, 1965, pp 145-150, Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp 181,298-299, Trevor Royle, 2000, pp 406-407,434-

435,459,461, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 293-294


Britain entered the war with the most ambitious war aims. Those were centered on

nullifying Russia’s influence in the Black Sea, Ottoman Empire and Baltic Sea.69

They

were tied to English goals in the Great Game over the East. Britain aimed to destroy

Sebastopol, the Russian Baltic Forts of Cronstadt and Seaborg, eradicate special Russian

rights in the Danubian Principalities, and regain for the Ottoman Empire the eastern

Black Sea coast.70

The unwillingness of Austria and Sweden to enter the war early, and

Russian successes in Asia Minor shelved the British military plans for the Baltic and East

Coast of the Black Sea. As a result, British war aims were centered on Sebastopol. Once

the city fell, Britain under Prime Minister Palmerston tried to seek more ambitious war

aims in the Baltic and Asia Minor. France and Austria, however, were unwilling to fight

the major war that British war aims required. Britain also was unwilling to incur the costs

of such a war. In consequence it sat at the negotiating table as the most dissatisfied of

winners.71

Still, the basic goal of breaking Russian influence in the Ottoman Empire and

Black Sea was fulfilled by the Paris Treaty.

Austria had two main aims during the war. The first was to avoid getting

militarily entangled in it.72

Secondly Austria wanted to see Russia’s exclusive sphere of

influence in the Black Sea broken.73

In order to meet the first goal, Austria repeatedly

offered its diplomatic services and ultimately used the threat of intervention to force

Russia to seek peace. To meet the second war aim, Austria used Russia’s bad strategic

position to coerce it into evacuating the Danubian Principalities, and formulated with

69

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 108-11, 155-160, Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp 44,83-85,86,87,88, Trevor Royle,2000, pp 44-

45,88,207,Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 315,341,343,347,356,370-371, H.C.F. Bell, The Home Secretary in Foreign Affairs pp

35-37 in OCW,1969, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 196,226-228,251 70

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 155-160, Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp xxi,73,161,181,208,230,287,293,316,318,C.E.Vulliamy,

1939, pp 77,262, Trevor Royale 110,207, 384, Vernon Puryear, 1965, page 360, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 191,193 71

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 155-160,176-181,185-188,199-202, Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp xvi-

xxi,25,87,183,230,251,287,299,341-342, Vernon Puryear, 1965, page 372, Alexis Troubetzkoy, 2006, page 299, David

Goldfrank, 1994, pp 251,262-263 72


13-17,102,112,123,140-145, Vernon John Puryear,England, Russia, and the Straits Question 1844-1845, Archon Books,

Hamden, Connecticut 1965, pp 326-327, David Goldfrank,The Origins of the Crimean War ,Longman Publishing, Harlow,

Essex 1994, pp 237-238 73

Norman Rich, 1985, page 112, Trevor Royle,2002, page 310,Vernon Puryear, 1965, pp 132, 135-137,338,341, Alexis

Troubetzkoy, 2006, pp 138-139,158,David Goldfrank, 1994, page 257


France the Four Points which were peace terms aimed at ending Russian control on the

Danube and Black Sea.74

Also Austria made it clear to Russia that territorial changes in

the Ottoman Empire would mean war. 75

Once it became evident that Russia was willing

to accommodate Austria, the Austrians joined France in pushing Britain to accept a peace

based on the minimalist Four points.

The Crimean War was a conflict over the Russian spheres of influence in the

Black Sea and Ottoman Empire. For Great Britain and Austria the exclusive nature of

those spheres of influence, and their consequences for their national interests meant that

they had to erode those spheres. Initially, with Russian compliance, they tired to mitigate

the exclusive character of the Russian sphere of influence. But when Russia tried to

upgrade its Ottoman sphere of influence to a highly exclusive one, they joined France in

opposing Russia. Initially they did so diplomatically. But Russia willingness to use

military coercion led Great Britain to join France in a limited war, while Austria

‘buckpassed’. Russia was not willing to intensify the war to protect its spheres of

influence, fearing the consequences of a major war. The same fear guided France,

Austria, and to an extent Great Britain in keeping the war limited. Once it was clear that

Russia’s spheres of influence were destroyed, the allies had no reason to extend the war.

Austria’s threat of intervention led Russia to the negotiating table. The Peace of Paris and

the Four Points it was based on, ended the Russian spheres of influence by replacing

them by a balance of power.76

Russia, while losing influence, did not lose its ability to

wage existential war, and thus accepted the peace.

74

Norman Rich, 1985, pp 123,140-145, Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War British grand strategy, 1853-1856,

Manchester University Press, New York, NY 1990, pp 88, 197,204, 296,Trevor Royle, 2000, pp 170,312,452,

AlexisTroubetzkoy, 2006, pp 138-139,158, David Goldfrank, 1994, page 286 75

Vernon Puryear, 1965, page 338, David Goldfrank, 1994, pp 257, 265,286 76

The Four Points were 1) replacing the Russian guarantee of the Danubian Principalities with a European guarantee, 2)

freeing trade on the Danube river from Russian domination, 3) Revising the treaty of 1841 is such a way that it would preclude

Russian influence in the Porte and Russian naval supremacy in the Black Sea, and 4) European Protection of Ottoman

Christians, Norman Rich, 1985, pp 140-145,Andrew Lambert, 1990, pp 86, 88,197, 204, Trevor Royle, 2000, pp 312, 452-

455, David Goldfrank , 1994, pp 262-263


The Pacific War

The Pacific War between Japan and the United States was initiated by Japan with

the express objective of securing and expanding its sphere of influence in East Asia.

While it started as an influence war, it quickly escalated into an existential war. It did so

because the United States saw a secure Japanese sphere of influence as a precondition for

Japan to attack the Soviet Union and assist Germany in becoming the regional hegemon

in Europe, an eventuality that U.S leaders saw as posing an existential threat to the

United States.

Since the 19th

century, Japan had equated security with the creation and

maintenance of a large and exclusive sphere of influence in East Asia.77

The model for

the Japanese was the British Empire in India. In pursuit of this policy, Japan waged and

won the Sino-Japanese War of 1895-6, and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. By

the 1930s Japan had created a highly exclusive sphere of influence over Korea,

Manchuria, and Northern China.78

It was a sphere of influence based on territoriality,

market control, and internal mobilization. Japan had the strongest navy and army in the

area, and the controlled territories augmented it by providing military staging grounds

and manpower. Japan also imposed a colonial commercial system on the areas it

controlled.79

Finally, not only did Japan have the most industrialized economy in the area,

but Manchuria’s own industrialization was tied to strengthening Japanese industrial

capacity.80

Japan from 1931 on began trying to expand its sphere of influence into Soviet

East Asia, and China. While it was defeated in her challenge of the Soviet Union (battles

77

Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945, Pantheon Books, New York 1978, pp 3-12, John J. Mearsheimer The Tragedy

of Great Power Politics, Norton, 2003 New York, NY pp 172-176, Stephen Van Evera Causes of War, Cornell University

Press, 1999 , pp 126,188 78

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, pp 4,8,9-10,63,67, 129 ,John Mearsheimer, 2003, pp 176-180, Scott D. Sagan, The Origin and

Prevention of Major Wars, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4.,(Spring, 1988) page 896, Robert Pape,

Bombing to Win, Cornell University Press, 1996, page 110 79

Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945, Pantheon Books, New York 1978, pp 7-10,67,85, 153-171 80

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, pp 9-12,59-60,67, 160-165, John J. Mearsheimer The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Norton, 2003

New York, NY , pp 178-180


of Lake Khashan in 1938 and Khalkhin Gol in 1939), Japan’s attack on China,

culminating in open war in 1937, initially achieved great results. But the war later bogged

down.81

As the Chinese quagmire began eroding Japan’s self-help capabilities, the

country faced the negative reaction of the Western Powers and the United States.

The United States possessed a latent territorial sphere of influence in the Pacific

centered on control of Hawaii and the Philippines. While not greatly adding to U.S self-

help capabilities, the two areas provided the United States with an extended power

projection capability into the heart of the Sea of China. The United States, since the

Russo-Japanese war, was worried about Japan’s expansion, but did not feel threatened.82

As long as Japan turned towards China, the U.S was content to ‘pass the buck’ of

stopping Japanese aggression to the Chinese.83

But as the clouds of war started to cover

Europe, the United States became increasingly worried of Japan’s ability to adversely

affect the situation in Europe.84

Therefore it joined Great Britain and the Netherlands in

imposing embargoes on Japan from 1938 onwards. While these were toothless in the

beginning, they became increasingly stringent when war erupted in Europe and Japan

joined the Axis.

The embargoes started affecting Japan’s military capability, eroding its self-help

capabilities, and decreasing the chances of winning the war in China. Faced with the

prospect of a deteriorating military situation in China, Japan decided that the only way to

guarantee its sphere of influence and save her self-help capabilities was to extend it

southwards towards French Indochina, and Dutch Indonesia.85

The Japanese believed,

correctly, that the Western powers and the U.S wanted it to be tied down and expend its

81

Saburo Ienaga , 1978, pp 79-80, John Mearsheimer, 2001, page 221 82

John Mearsheimer , 2001, pp 179-181,221, Robert Pape, 1996, pp 89-91 83 Saburo Ienaga , 1978, pp 79-80, Richard B.Frank, Downfall; The end of the imperial Japanese Empire, Penguin Books,

New York, 1999 page 22,John Mearsheimer , 2003, pp 221-224,257-261 84

Saburo Ienaga , 1978, pp 80,131,132-133, Richard B.Frank, 1999, pp 22-23, John Mearsheimer, 2003, pp 181, 221-223,

Scott, D.Sagan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History , 1988, pp 901-903 85

Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945, Pantheon Books, New York 1978, pp 129-133, John Mearsheimer, 2003, pp

221-222, Stephen Van Evera, 1999, page 126, Scott D. Sagan 895, 904, 907-910, 912


power in China in order to be unable to affect the war in Europe.86

This perception was

reinforced when Germany attacked the Soviet Union and the United States tightened its

embargo to the point that Japanese ability to supply and maintain its navy and armies was

put at risk.

While Great Britain and the Dutch had strong security interests in the area, in the

form of their colonies and therefore wanted to weaken Japan, the United States was

driven primarily by long-term security reasons. It feared that Japan would attack the

Soviet Union, and so putting the latter in a two-front war, and leading to its defeat. Soviet

defeat would lead to a Europe dominated by Germany, which potentially could be an

existential threat to the United States.87

Thus Washington wanted Japan bogged down in

China, and if possible her sphere of influence wrecked. It initially tried to pass the buck

to Great Britain and the Dutch. But German victories in Europe in 1940-41 made the

position of those powers in the Far East tenuous.

A Japanese invasion of the territories of Great Britain and the Netherlands in the

Pacific could only happen if the United States was either persuaded to remain natural or

militarily constrained. The threat of a U.S. oil embargo was the main reason that the

Japanese sought to control the resources of Indochina and Indonesia. But an attempt to

control those resources would be nullified by a U.S military action or threat of action.88

Without finding resources, Japan would be hard pressed to keep its overextended army

supplied. Japanese leaders became increasingly persuaded that their only choice was to

fight a war with the U.S which would permit them to take control of the Eastern Pacific,

averting the degradation of their self-help capabilities.89

Fearing a future war with the

86

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, pp 132-135, John Mearsheimer, 2003, pp 221-225, 257-260 87 Saburo Ienega , 1978, pp 80-81, Richard B.Frank, Downfall; The end of the imperial Japanese Empire, Penguin Books,

New York, 1999, pp 22-24, Mearsheimer 219-224,251,257-261, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1988, pp 901-903 88

Scott D. Sagan Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4, The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars. (Spring,

1988), pp 897,912-914 89

Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945, Pantheon Books, New York 1978, pp 131-136, John Mearsheimer, 2003, pp

219-224, Stephen Van Evera, 1999, pp 89-94, Scott D. Sagan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History,1998, pp 895, 904,907-

910, 912, 920-922


U.S under worse conditions, they decided to take advantage of the decision to keep the

bulk of its Pacific fleet in Hawaii, and launched the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese sought a limited war of influence. The wished to destroy U.S power

projection capabilities by destroying the U.S Pacific navy and taking the Philippines and

Hawaii.90

They also wished to cut off U.S aid to China, and to the British Commonwealth

forces fighting in India and Indonesia.91

Japan did not seek to pose an existential threat to

the United States. Its strategy was based on the belief that the United States would

become embroiled in the European war in order to save the tottering Soviet Union, and in

consequence would be unable to mount for a long time a serious offensive in the

Pacific.92

That time would be enough for Japan to complete the subjugation of China,

Indonesia and Indochina and hence be better prepared to either assist Germany against

the Soviet Union or face a U.S attack. The most optimistic scenario was that the United

States would be so bogged down in Europe, that it would acquiesce to Japan’s new

sphere of influence.

The Japanese misread not only the U.S ability to fight a two front war, but also

how linked in Washington’s view, was Japans sphere of influence in the Pacific with the

existential threat posed by Germany in Europe.93

The United States quickly escalated its

efforts on both fronts. U.S war aims quickly became unlimited. Not only must Japan’s

sphere of influence come to an end, but Japan’s military capabilities had to be

dramatically reduced. For Japan these aims, which U.S war strategy sought to attain,

posed an existential threat.94

The Japanese navy was eradicated, Japan mercilessly

bombed and blockaded and Japanese control over the Philippines and Indonesia nullified.

90

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, pp 139-140, 143, Stephen Van Evera, 1999, pp 89,91-94 91

Saburo Ienaga , 1978, pp 139, 142-43, Stephen Van Evera, 1999, pp 156-157 92

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, pp 139-140, John Mearsheimer, 2003, pp 223-224, Stepehn Van Evera, 1999, pp 89-94, Scott D.

Sagan, 1988, pp 914-917, Robert Pape, 1996, pp 110-111 93

John J. Mearsheimer The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Norton, 2003 New York, NY pp 172-176219-224, 257-261,

Stephen Van Evera Causes of War, Cornell University Press, 1999 , pp 21-22,28-29,49, 94 Richard B.Frank, Downfall; The end of the imperial Japanese Empire, Penguin Books, New York, 1999 pp 24-37, Stephen

Van Evera, 1999, page 156, Robert Pape, Bombing to Win, Cornell University Press, 1996, pp 91-98


For Japan the main aim during the war, was to preserve the armies fighting in

China, Indochina, and Indonesia. As the war progressed, Japan became isolated form

those armies, but the leadership would not surrender as long as they were active. At the

very basic, it was these armies on which the Japanese sphere of influence had been built,

and as long as they existed, Japan could get a negotiated peace. This situation created a

problem for the United States. In order to end the war, it would have to either eliminate

the imperial center or those armies. But the bulk of the U.S army by 1945 was fighting in

Europe and there were insufficient forces for either of those options. Washington wanted

to end the war quickly, and preferably without moving the U.S forces from Europe to the

Pacific. The reason for this was that the U.S needed its army in Europe in order to

counterbalance Soviet power.95

Also, the projected losses of an invasion of the home

islands quickly made the U.S leadership unenthusiastic about the Home Islands invasion

plans.96

The United States used the atomic bombs in an attempt to force a Japanese

surrender. While the historical record is still contested, it seems that the atomic bombs

did not persuade the military figures of the government to surrender, although the civilian

figures and the Emperor did lose their trust in the military’s ability to win the war.97

Also

in August 8th

1945, the Soviet Union entered the war, quickly overrunning the Kwantung

army. These events led to the end of the last vestiges of resistance in the government

towards the one point conditional surrender. Japan surrendered because the atomic bombs

nullified any chance of gaining a negotiated peace as a result of a military victory against

95

Richard B.Frank, 1999, pp 122,129,249-251 96

Richard B. Frank , pp 117-130, 139-148,193-196 ,337-343, Robert Pape, 1996, pp 106-108 97 Richard B.Frank, Downfall; The end of the imperial Japanese Empire, Penguin Books, New York, 1999 pp99, 270-

272,288-290, 295-296, 314, 344-345, Robert Pape, Bombing to Win, Cornell University Press, 1996, pp 119-123


the U.S invasion of the home islands. The bombs presented a cheaper option of ruining

the imperial base.98

Japan also surrendered because the Soviet entry into the war made it impossible

for the Japanese to hold their empire even in the case of a negotiated peace with the

U.S.99

There was no way to reinforce the armies in the Pacific and China, and they had no

possibility of defeating the Soviet Army. Finally, fear of internal unrest due to the effects

of the blockade played a role in the mind of the Emperor and some members of

government.100

Japan thus surrendered when it became evident that its sphere of

influence had been lost, and that the continuation of the war would lead to the destruction

of the Imperial institution and Japanese social order. The war had been launched to save

and extend the sphere of influence that would augment Japan’s self help capabilities.

Since this could not happen anymore, there was no point in sacrificing the state and

nation to preserve self-help capabilities that were fatally degraded.

The U.S escalation drove Japanese escalation, since the Japanese saw the United

States as posing an existential threat. As a result a war that started as an influence war,

escalated to an existential war. While it ended in conditional surrender, the reality was

that Japan ceased to be a sovereign state. U.S victory was total. This war would have

been unlikely if Japan did not see its sphere of influence as tied to its self-help

capabilities. But the dual nature of territoriality, and internal mobilization did not permit

a different view. And it was this dual nature that made the Japanese spheres of influence

dangerous for the United States.

The two case studies provide an insight on how the theory works. States consider

the costs and benefits of war and peace, factoring in the importance of the NSoP tied to

the contested sphere of influence. Both Russia and Japan did this. Also challengers factor

98

Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945, Pantheon Books, New York 1978, page 150, Richard B.Frank, 1999, pp 194,

196, 337-340, 347 99

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, page 150, Richard B. Frank,1999 ,pp 82, 94, 345, Robert Pape, 1996, pp 115-117, 123-125 100

Saburo Ienaga, 1978, page 230-231,Richard B. Frank, 1999, pp 97,310, 344-346, Robert Pape, 1996, pp 121-123


the exclusivity of the sphere of influence into their decision to challenge it. In both case

studies the challengers, Great Britain and Austria in the Crimean War and the United

States in the Pacific War, saw the exclusive character of the spheres of influence as a

danger.

Additionally in both case studies the challengers tried to avoid war, first trying

through diplomacy to mitigate the exclusivity of the sphere of influence. This worked

only to a point for the Crimean case since the stratified sphere of influence had clear

geographical areas corresponding to the dominant NSoP. Russia quickly gave up its

sphere of influence in the Ottoman Empire without a fight. It fought though for the Black

Sea. In the Japanese case, where stratification was not geographically separable, no

possibility of negotiation could work. This seems to indicate that a stratified sphere of

influence where the different NSoP correspond to distinct geographical zones provides

more bargaining space than a sphere of influence where stratification is not

geographically distinct.

Once challengers’ demands started affecting the dual-nature NSoP in the stratified

mix both Russia and Japan fought hard. Both gave up though when the costs of trying to

maintain the sphere of influence became such that the states self-help capabilities were in

mortal danger. Russia did this a lot more painlessly than Japan because the loss of her

sphere of influence did not adversely affect her ability to fight an existential war. For

Japan were the sphere of influence was crucial to its self-help capabilities, the war ended

only when those self-help capabilities were already destroyed. Also the Crimean war was

less intense then the Pacific War. This satisfies predictions two and three.

Finally Austria’s policy in the Crimean wars provides as with an alternative to

negotiation and fighting for challengers. This is ‘buck passing’. This strategy will be

preferred by weak states that still see a threat from a sphere of influence.


How the Nuclear Revolution affects the argument

The argument I developed thus far does not make space for a nuclear world. But

since 1945 the great powers of the world have been operating under the effects of the

nuclear revolution. In this section I summarize how the nuclear revolution impacts my

argument. I argue that while the nuclear revolution changes some of the outcomes

predicted, it does not change the causal logic.

The basic, overarching effect of the nuclear revolution on my argument is that

existential wars among great powers become extremely rare, and extremely deadly.

Nuclear weapons essentially deter great powers from trying to exterminate each other,

while giving them the ultimate tool to do such a thing. This means that attacks against the

dual-nature NSoP are prohibitively costly, as any state that suffers such an attack will see

an existential threat which will raise the specter of nuclear war.

Moreover the Nuclear Revolution means that Great Powers will be hesitant to

launch influence wars over spheres of influence that are tied to dual-nature NSoP. They

will do this because they would fear the escalation spiral inherent in such a war. Indeed,

Great Powers will probably be less willing to create spheres of influence tied to dual-

nature NSoP. This is so because a nuclear deterrent is the supreme form of self-help

capabilities, and the security risks associated with spheres of influence tied to dual-nature

NSoP are not worth the benefits they provide in self-help capabilities.

We should consequently see a reduction in great power competition over dual-

nature NSoP. Great Powers with nuclear deterrents will turn to competing over more or

less open spheres of influence tied to non-dual NSoP. The threat of war arising from

these is smaller, and the likelihood of escalation to the nuclear level is lower, because

loss of such spheres of influence does not pose an existential threat to a great power. This


is a trend reinforced by the rise of the information economy and the global commercial

system.

But the system is not fully safe. Even if war over spheres of influence tied to dual-

nature NSoP is less likely, there is a higher likelihood of crises erupting over them. This

happens because nuclear armed states will believe that their nuclear arsenal protects them

from an attack over competition over such spheres of influence. States will use

brinkmanship to try and gain what they used to gain by war. And these crises will still

create the threat of escalation. Thus, while the likelihood of war over spheres of influence

tied to the dual nature sources of power will go down, the possibility of crises takes its

place. Finally states might still be willing to use war over spheres of influence tied to

non-dual nature NSoP. While not a highly likely possibility, it does exist, and escalation

dynamics may lead to high intensity.

My argument can still explain the nuclear world. The part pertaining to spheres of

influence tied to non-dual nature NSoP still remains as is. The parts that refer to spheres

of influence tied to dual-nature NSoP change as following. Wars over such spheres of

influence should be rare. States will prefer to use crises rather then overt war in order to

erode them. They will also try to limit the possibility of escalation that such crises entail.

Should escalation happen, though, the argument’s main theory that such a war will be

characterized by high intensity still holds. Indeed this is one of the few ways that a

nuclear war might erupt.

Conclusion and Future Research

In order to answer the question of what causes the variation in intensity among

Great Power wars, I laid forth an argument that the level in intensity results from the

varying importance that spheres of influence have for Great Powers. Since existential


wars are by definition highly intensive wars, any variation in intensity among Great

Power wars resides in the variation in intensity among Great Power influence wars. This

in turn is defined by whether the sphere of influence affects the dual-nature NSoP, like

territoriality and internal mobilization, or the non-dual nature NSoP, like market control

and ideological hegemony. While all of them can increase a state’s influence, only the

first two are crucial to a states self-help capabilities and thus ability to fight and win an

existential war. Since any attempt to erode spheres of influence affecting the dual-nature

NSoP will undermine the self-help capabilities of a state, the incentives to go to war and

intensify the effort to win the war will be high. This is not the case with non-dual nature

NSoP.

How exclusive a sphere of influence is will also affect the likelihood of states

going to war over it. The more exclusive a sphere is the more likely a war is. Spheres of

influence affecting dual-nature NSoP will by nature be highly exclusive, while this is not

necessarily the case with non-dual nature NSoP. Therefore Great Power wars over

spheres of influence affecting the dual-nature NSoP will be more likely than war over

those spheres affecting non-dual nature NSoP. And wars over the former will be more

intense then wars over the latter.

The argument presented here lends some support to the liberal-institutionalist

school of thought and its claim that an open international economic system reinforces

peace, since high exclusivity is one of the factors that may lead states to fight over non-

dual NSoP. It also, however reinforces the realist claim that issue indivisibilities are

common in the world, and will lead to war. Furthermore it brings to question the

rationalist claim that states wage war because of an inability to find a bargaining space. It

seems that states are quite capable of fully understanding the possibility of a bargaining

space, and will avoid war if such a space exists. But if the issues are by their nature


indivisible then war is likely. Indivisibility is not the result of private information, or

misrepresentation. It is the result of the dual-nature or non-dual nature of NSoP.

My argument as made in this paper is still incomplete. First, there is a need for

further research on the impact that a dynamic balance of power will have on the cost/

benefit analysis of states when contemplating war initiation or escalation. My hunch is

that it will play a crucial role, especially in a state’s decision to fight over non-dual nature

NSoP. Indeed further research is needed to explain why states would fight over non-dual

nature NSoP, and how these wars can escalate to high intensity. Also, there is a need for

fleshing out how spheres of influence and national sources of power interact, and how

national sources of power can be operationalized and quantified. This in turn will permit

the running of large-n tests that can further reinforce the theory as well as make it more

capable of generating predictions. Additionally the escalation dynamics need further

research. This in turn necessitates a more extensive analysis of the impact of the nuclear

revolution on the theory. Finally, there is a need for more case studies, especially of wars

over spheres of influence tied to non-dual nature NSoP that escalated to high levels of

intensity, wars over dual-nature NSoP that did not, and crises over spheres of influence

that did not lead to war.


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