Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition by Jack Snyder

Author:Jack Snyder
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: International Relations, 20th Century, Modern, General, Imperialism, Political Science, Security (National & International), History
ISBN: 9780801468599
Publisher: Cornell
Published: 2013-05-21T14:02:14+00:00

Palmerston’s Strategic Beliefs

Palmerston’s strategic pronouncements were similar to those of the Russophobes, though less extreme and tempered in practice by an understanding of the need for self-restraint until an opponent had been diplomatically isolated. Paper tiger, domino, and Thermopylae themes pervade his geopolitical concepts, but especially interesting is the role of liberal ideology in his approach to grand strategy.

Character of the opponent

Palmerston, like the Russophobes, saw Russia as risk averse but as having unlimited aims. “The moderation of the Czar…reassures me poorly,” he said of Russian salami-slicing tactics in 1848–49. “From moderation to moderation he might finish, if one let him have his way, by invading the entire world.”107 Consequently Russia had to be opposed, but this could be done without great risk. “Russia will go as far as she can without war with England,” he wrote McNeill in 1838 regarding the threat of a Russian invasion of India via Afghanistan, “but her system of aggrandizement is founded on the principle of encroachment and not war with equal or superior powers and whenever she finds such a war likely to be the result of further encroachment, she will stop for the moment, and wait for a more favorable opportunity.”108

With such an enemy, standing firm—and especially talking loudly—provides the surest guarantee of keeping the peace. “Russia has advanced because nobody observed, watched, and understood what she was doing,” Foreign Secretary Palmerston explained to Prime Minister Melbourne in 1835. “Expose her plans and you half defeat them. Raise public opinion against her and you double her difficulties. I am all for making a clatter against her. Depend upon it, that is the best way to save you from the necessity of making war against her.”109 Conversely, Palmerston typically held that appeasement would lead to war, whether with France in 1840 or with Russia in 1853, when he held that talk of “peace at any price” had misled the tsar.110

Underlying Palmerston’s belief in the effectiveness of threats was his “consciousness of strength, this feeling of natural power,” which could not fail to impress other states as long as Britain demonstrated the will to use its great capabilities.111 But despite Palmerston’s confidence in British power, he acted decisively only after manipulating the Concert of Europe to isolate his opponent. Even when he thought Britain was strong enough to prevail in a one-on-one fight, he realized that reckless action might provoke opposition from third parties.112 Only when Britain’s opponents had isolated themselves by supporting aggression against Turkey did Palmerston drop his self-restraint. Thus Palmerston forced an isolated France to abandon its Egyptian ally, Mohammed Ali, in his war against the Turks in 1840; he compelled an isolated Russia to accept British dominance in the Turkish Straits in 1841; and he relentlessly pursued the war against an isolated Russia in 1854–55.113

In this sense Palmerston understood that balancing behavior was the norm in international politics. But unlike idealized versions of the Concert of Europe propounded by modern political scientists, Palmerston’s image of the Concert had little room for reciprocal obligations of self-restraint in the long-run maintenance of the system.

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