Introduction                           

Academic theories and debates often seem dry, abstract, and lacking practical explanations. However, this is not the case with international relations theory. Though politicians do not explicitly use the language of international relations theories, a close look shows their actions and rhetoric are often similar to what different theories hold is how states act in the international system. Thus, understanding international relations theory can provide a useful window into what drives world leaders to make the decisions they do, and how they may see seemingly small issues, or morally questionable actions, as vitally important to their nation’s national security.

To demonstrate the usefulness of IR theory in understanding leaders' actions, this essay will analyze how the Reagan Administration's Central America policy and rhetoric, supplying military assistance to support the non-communist side of the region's many civil wars, demonstrated many of the principles that would come to be articulated in offensive realism by John Mearsheimer. Understanding the drivers of state actions according to offensive realism allows a fuller understanding of why the Reagan administration acted in the manner it did.

Realist Principles in Administration Policy, Rhetoric

U.S. military aid to the contras, as well as to El Salvador and Guatemala's authoritarian governments was neither predestined nor, arguably, even necessary to defend the nation. The Cold War was a time of high tension, but that did not automatically lead to the need to take sides in localized conflicts in small states. founder of Neo-realism Thinker Kenneth Waltz has even argued that great powers can be “indifferent to most threats because only a few threats can damage them severely.”[1] Yet, the threat of communism in Central America was seen as so great within the Reagan administration that they were willing to go so far as to even secretly break Congress’s prohibition on aid to the Contra anti-communist rebel group in Nicaragua, resulting in the Iran-Contra scandal. The administration’s extreme concern for Central America was evident almost as soon as they entered office, in February 1981, when Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated that the administration would not “remain passive” in the face of what it saw as “a systematic, well-financed, sophisticated effort to impose a communist regime in Central America.[2] Underneath all of the Cold War tension contained with this statement is a view of the international system rooted in power politics and a belief that a state had to actively combat any challenge to its power and interest to protect itself and achieve its goals.

Though it was not formally articulated by scholars yet, the Reagan administration's actions bear great resemblance to the principles of power politics expressed in offensive realism. This theory is based on the premise that “great powers live in a fundamentally competitive world where they view each other as real, or at least potential enemies, and they, therefore, look to gain power at each other’s expense.”[3][3] The combination of uncertainty, anarchy, and a desire to survive leads to no other conclusion that states must pursue power for power's sake; a state can never be sure how much power its potential enemies may have and how much power it needs to keep itself safe, so a state can never have too much power.[4] Reagan expressed similar logic to justify military assistance to non-communist forces in Central America. He argued that Central America was to close to vital sea lanes in the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal to allow “the specter of Marxist-Leninist”[5] governments there, that communist subversion would spread “southwards and northwards,” and that not supporting Central American governments would cause those governments to fall, increasing the threats to the American way of life.[6] The policy and rhetoric of the Reagan administration in Central America was essentially based on a Central American version of the domino theory.[7] Preventing Communism spreading in Central America not just a response to local conditions, but a clear and present threat that would increase communism's power dramatically, thus embarrassing the United States and reducing its power, synonymous with its ability to secure its interests everywhere.

In addition to understanding the strategic, power-based argument, understanding offensive realism provides an understanding of the moral argument that the Reagan Administration was making for supporting authoritarian human rights abuses in Central America. The Administration embraced Jeane Kirkpatrick’s argument in her famous essay “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” where she argued that there was a difference between authoritarians, who left in place the standard practices of life, and totalitarians, who disrupted it in favor of some political ideal.[8] This philosophy leads to the conclusion that the U.S. had not just a duty to its own interest to maximize its power, but in doing so, it was preventing a worse outcome. It should come as no surprise, then, that Reagan painted USSR as the “evil empire,” while still being able to call the human-rights abusing Contras the “moral equivalents of the founding fathers.”[9] They were only authoritarians, not totalitarians. In this view, there is no way to have a moral foreign policy in a power-based world. To do so may even be amoral, because it allows the worst regimes, those who violate the fundamental rights and patterns of life, to gain more power.  In the Reagan Administration not only did the U.S. have a great power rival pursuing its own power, requiring the U.S. to do the same, but the rival great power, the communist USSR, was in fact, morally worse than the U.S. and its allies, further justifying their actions. Supplying arms to Central American dictatorships both protected U.S. influence in the region and prevented an evil ideology from taking hold. The principles the Reagan Administration was working off of are seen in offensive realism, and understanding these, it should come as no surprise the administration was so eager to provide military aid to Central America’s anti-communist forces, no matter the scruples of the recipients, or indeed, their own.

Conclusion

In the example of Reagan and Central America, understanding offensive realism allows one to clearly see how the administration believed that the ends justified the means.  When politics and academics mix, it is usually when practitioners of the former see some benefit in commenting on the latter. Yet, the work of academics in building out international relations theory provides a useful tool for understanding the decision-making of world leaders. Beyond just understanding rhetoric, geography, and who doesn’t like whom, understanding international relations theory is a useful tool for analyzing how the decisions world leaders make show how they think about the world and what variable they believe is most influential in the unending game of statecraft.

Connor Watson is a rising senior at Samford University, majoring in political science and minor in economics and Spanish. He has also held an internship at the William J Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense studies, at the National Defense University.

[1] Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Waveland Press.

[2] 1981. Excerpts From Haig’s Briefing About El Salvador. New York TImes

[3] Mearsheimer, John. 2001. Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W.W. Norton & Company

[4] Mearsheimer, John. 2001. Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W.W. Norton & Company

[5] Cannon , Lou. 1983. “President Firm on El Salvador .” The Washington Post.

[6] Reagan, Ronald, President. 1984. “Address to the Nation on United States Policy in Central America.

[7] Hardt, D. 1986. “The Reagan Administration’s Battle for Contra Aid.” The Fletcher Forum 10(2). 259-295.

[8] Kirkpatrick, Jeanne, Dr. “Dictatorships and Double Standards. Commentary.

[9] Cannon, Lou, 1985. “Reagan says U.S. owes Contras ‘help.’” The Washington Post.