Abstract
The controversy surrounding what many describe as a new Cold War with Russia—namely, the crisis currently unfolding in Ukraine—is a fitting context for reflection upon Ned Lebow’s contributions to understanding the ending of the last Cold War. By this I mean less his pioneering writings on deterrence, confrontation, and escalation, though these insights too would be welcome in today’s policy debates and punditry dominated by simplistic and superficial arguments (Lebow 1981; Lebow/Gross Stein 1995). Rather I mean Lebow’s rigorous, judicious, and historically informed analyses of how the Cold War’s end came as such a surprise, why our theories failed us, and what new methodological and empirical insights suggest for both better understanding of dramatic change in international relations and for better policy-making in its aftermath. Lebow’s early writings in each of these areas—IR theory and the Cold War’s end, the sources of US-Soviet accommodation, and lessons for US and Western policy going forward—were signal contributions of enduring salutary merit.
Robert English, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the School of International Relations, University of Southern California, email: renglish@usc.edu
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Notes
- 1.
Lebow (1994: 249–278). Google Scholar credits this article with nearly 300 academic citations as of Spring, 2015.
- 2.
Lebow (1994: 266) also anticipated post hoc arguments that sharp economic decline had made retreat unavoidable, and so consistent with realist predictions, by noting that this decline only came after Gorbachev’s main foreign-policy innovations and was largely a result of his own flawed economic reforms. Still, prominent realists were soon making precisely the argument that Lebow had already rebutted: see Walt (1997).
- 3.
Here Lebow (1994: 252–255) needed only illustrate the widespread disagreement among realists themselves over the bi- or multi-polar character of the international system both before and immediately after the Cold War’s end.
- 4.
Pointedly, their theory’s under specification “makes it impossible for realists to predict much of anything before the fact, but all too easy for them to explain anything once it has occurred” (Lebow 1994: 263).
- 5.
- 6.
See also Risse-Kappen (1994). This is another exception to the prevailing theoretical rigidity of early post-Cold War IR, an important though rather narrower contribution than Lebow’s.
- 7.
Lebow (1995: 167–186). Lebow began with “Our collective failure, while embarrassing, represents an opportunity. Theory progresses by acknowledging its failures and reformulating its assumptions” (p. 167).
- 8.
Lebow, “Search for Accommodation,” p. 171.
- 9.
Among many such examples see Oye (1994).
- 10.
For an interpretation that views ideas more for their instrumental role, and downplays the institutional impediments to policy innovation, see Checkel (1997).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
Lebow (2010). On leadership and the Cold War see “Did It Have to End This Way?” (Lebow/Breslauer 2004: 103–135).
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English, R. (2017). Ned Lebow on the Cold War’s End, and Aftermath. In: Lebow, R. (eds) Richard Ned Lebow: A Pioneer in International Relations Theory, History, Political Philosophy and Psychology. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34150-7_8
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