RIPS' Eye No.48
"Guns of August" or a "Great Illusion"?:
The Reemergence of Northeast Asian Rivalry

PHOTO : Dr. Robert M. Orr

By Dr. Robert M. Orr

President, Boing Japan
Boad, RIPS

In the Spring of 1962 the American historian Barbara Tuchman published her prescient analysis of the origins of World War I entitled The Guns of August. The essence of her argument was that the “Great War” as it was known for a generation came about less by design and more by big power blunderings, misunderstandings, miscues and overconfidence. President John F. Kennedy found her work so compelling that later in the year he made it required reading among the leadingU.S. foreign policy makers. He feared that thermonuclear war itself could be triggered by similar faux pas and felt strongly that managing the Soviet-American relationship to prevent this ought to be the priority.

In 1909, the British journalist Norman Angell wrote a book that was equally if not even more so debated among the governmental and intellectual elites of Europe called The Great Illusion. Angell believed that war in Europe was simply impossible. The intrinsic financial and economic linkages were so deep that the powers could never afford to engage in a continent wide conflagration.

There is an ironic consistency between Tuchman and Angell. Both saw relationship management as the key. With the hindsight of 50 years she saw the failure of that management as the key to war. He believed at the time that managing the relationship was so vital to the welfare of European society the powers would never permit the kind of large scale failure that Tuchman subsequently interpreted.

Is Northeast Asia facing a similar dilemma today? In contrast with the Middle East where religion, terrorism and middle to small power rivalry is preeminent, this region is inhabited by large powerful states with standing militaries and technology that dwarf anything in the Middle East. Historical bitterness is as at least as profound.

While many today believe, as Angell did about Europe, that economic interdependence in Asia is becoming too great to imagine a regional conflict, Tuchman's lessons must be heeded in order to prevent a devolution of the kind she described in Europe.

Several things have become quite clear in the North Asian regional equation at the dawn of the 21st century. First and foremost has been the rise of China economically and increasingly in a military sense. Concomitant has been an apparent increase in nationalism not among those who suffered under the yoke of Japanese imperialism but largely by their grandchildren. This is potentially ominous for Japan since it suggests that rather than World War 2 receding as a historical memory, it might be intensifying.

The second obvious challenge has been the emergence of North Korea as a nuclear power and the heretofore failure of the 6 party talks to reengage Pyong Yong, irrespective of where the fault lies. There is no regional power that can happily accept a North Korean force de frappe under any conceivable circumstances, especially armed with missiles within easy striking range of Marunouchi, Kazumigaseki or Nagatacho.

Third has been the peculiar rise of South Korean nationalism that seems equally to play off anti-Japanese and anti-American sentiments. Relative to Japan this has been manifested with the absurd potential conflict over two rocks, known as Takeshima inJapan and Tokdo in Korea, in theSea of Japan which seem to have no overwhelming geopolitical value. And yet an Asahi Shimbun press plane's intrusion some months before was sufficient to warrant Seoul to scramble a squad of F-16s to engage the tiny aircraft. One false move on the part of a fighter pilot might have initiated a hair trigger event for a “Guns of August” scenario if you accept the allegory of miscalculation and bumbling. As an outsider like myself it is difficult to totally comprehend a potential armed dispute over this. My reading is that Takeshima was indeed the first step toJapan's colonialization of the Korean peninsula in 1905 and thus represents a bona fide emotional sticking point for the Koreans. It strikes me that Japan may be facing a dilemma that Moscow faces in reverse. Thus providing a segue into the always complicated Russo-Japanese relationship.

The relationship has never been easy. The main underlying reason for Russia's intransigence over the Northern Territories has been the implications for other parts of the country's still vast empire. Would reversion of the four islands north of Hokkaido spark another Chechnya style uprising? Likewise if Japan were to concede to the South Koreans on Takeshima would this represent to the region a weakening of Japan's sovereignty claims and thus encourage Russia to maintain a hard line?.…or encourage the Chinese to be more aggressive in the Senkaku islands?

The kinds of regional power rivalry, border disputes and nationalism that Tuchman wrote about have all but vanished in today's Europe. Angell's view of the power of economic integration is far closer to reality in Europe today than it was when he wrote. There were no regional mechanisms to contain conflict in Europe in 1914 as exist today in a plethora of multilateral organizations lead by the European Union and NATO.

Obviously there are no equivalents to these stability enhancing organizations in Northeast Asia as there is in Europe today. Thus the challenge will be to manage these dynamic relationships without succumbing to emotional pomp. Wild anti-Japanese demonstrations in China and Korea do not promote this anymore than Japanese officials visiting disputed territories or shrines interpreted by regional powers as honoring those who brought catastrophe on them. Cooler heads must prevail much more than they did in Europe….during the “guns of August.”

Dr. Orr is President of Boeing Japan and a member of the RIPS Board. These views do not necessarily represent the views of the Boeing Company.

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