The State in International Politics loosely connected economically.They nevertheless sustained an uneasy peace for CONOMIC globalization four and a half decades.The most impor- would mean that the world tant causes of peace,as of war,are found -/economy,or at least the glob- in international-political conditions, alized portion of it,would be not merely including the weaponry available to states. interdependent but integrated.The dif- Events following the Cold War dramati- ference between an interdependent and cally demonstrate the political weakness an integrated world is a qualitative one of economic forces.The integration (not and not a mere matter of proportionately just the interdependence)of the parts of more trade and greater and more rapid the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia,with all flows of capital.With integration,the of their entangling economic interests, world would look like one big state. did not prevent their disintegration. Economic markets and interests,howev- Governments and people sacrifice welfare er,cannot perform the functions of gov- and even security in pursuit of national, ernment.Integration requires or pre- ethnic and religious ends. sumes a government to protect,direct National politics,not international and control. markets,account for many international Interdependence,in contrast,is "the economic developments.Many students of mere mutualism"of states,as Emile politics and economics believe that eco- Durkheim put it.Interdependence is not nomic blocs are becoming more common. only looser than is usually thought but is But economic interests and market forces also politically less consequential. do not create blocs;governments do. Interdependence did not produce the Without governmental decisions the Coal world-shaking events of 1989-91.A politi- and Steel Community,the European cal event,the failure of one of the world's Economic Community,and the European two great powers,did that.Had the con- Union would not have emerged.American figuration of international politics not governments forged NAFTA,and it was fundamentally changed,neither the unifi- Japan that fashioned an East and cation of Germany nor the war against Southeast Asian producing and trading Saddam Hussein would have been possi- area.Governments intervene much more ble.The most important events in inter- in international economic matters today national politics are explained by differ- than they did in the earlier era of interde- ences in the capabilities of states,not by pendence.Before World War I,foreign economic forces operating across states or ministry officials were famed for their lack transcending them.Interdependence the- of knowledge of,or interest in,economic orists,and globalizers even more so,argue affairs.Because governments have become that the international economic interests much more active in economic affairs at of states work against their going to war. home and abroad,interdependence has True,they do;yet if one asks whether become less of an autonomous force in economic interests or nuclear weapons international politics. inhibit war more strongly,the answer The many commentators who exag- obviously is nuclear weapons. gerate the closeness of interdependence, Europe's great powers prior to World and even more so the extent of globaliza- War I were tightly bound together eco- tion,think of individual states rather than nomically.They nevertheless fought a of the international political system as a long and bloody war.The United States whole.Many small states import and and the Soviet Union were not even export large shares of their gross national 52 The National Interest-Spring 2000. Copyright C2000.All rights reservedCopyright © 2000. All rights reserved