Modern Age - Summer 2014 - 42

MODERN AGE

of strategies on their ability to contain China
and maintain American regional and global
dominance. According to Thayer, the most
effective strategies for containing China
are those that require American military
power. The United States must therefore
maintain close military ties with the Republic of Taiwan and create a vigorous system
of alliances involving the major regional
powers near China, such as India, Japan,
and South Korea, possibly creating another
Asian treaty organization of sorts. Stalemate
and equilibrium with China are not options:
Thayer insists that the U.S. must not only
"have the will to confront China" but "must
be bold enough to win the competition" as
well. Such a confrontational policy has its
risks, to be sure-and among them, Thayer
admits, is the possibility of nuclear war-but
Thayer quite clearly believes that "boldness"
demands that we be fully prepared to run
them.
Conspicuously absent in all this is a willingness to deploy diplomacy as an instrument of accommodation. Thayer simply
shrugs off the possibility, dismissing the
hope of some sort of diplomatic entente with
China as Pollyannaish. "While analysts
hope that Sino-American confrontation can
be avoided," Thayer argues, "it is important
to anchor U.S. policies in realities and probable outcomes rather than hopes."33 And
what, exactly, are those realities? Although
Thayer does not explicitly say so, it is by now
difficult to escape the conclusion that they
are essentially biological; because the animal
kingdom as a general rule knows only winners and losers, and very little of negotiated
settlements, we must disabuse ourselves of
the hope of any sort of diplomatic accommodations with our rivals.
Thayer's single-minded preoccupation
with hegemony thus propels him far beyond
the precepts of Aron's classical realism. Com42

SUMMER 2014

pared to the realism of Aron, Morgenthau,
or Niebuhr, David Lampton has pointed
out, offensive realism rests on a rather "dark"
understanding of power, one that reserves
"virtually no role for diplomacy or intelligent
leadership." Military prowess may not be the
only form of power for Mearsheimer (and
Thayer), Lampton adds, but it is certainly
"the most useful," especially in "the junglelike international arena."34 Although classical realism, too, stressed the importance of
military power, it also believed that power
had a softer, more intentional dimension as
well; for Aron, power was measured not only
by calculating troop strength but also by
assessing a state's diplomatic ability to sway
the minds and opinions of others.
Thayer's Darwinian naturalism, then,
culminates not in some sort of uneasy equilibrium but rather in a restless, violent quest
for dominance. The struggle for dominance,
however, is not endemic to all biologically
based theories of international relations.
Although we have chosen to focus on
Thayer's work, we must note in passing that
other forms of biological naturalism have
driven some theorists to reach conclusions
that are diametrically opposed to Thayer's.
Jennifer Sterling-Folker, for example, argues
that there is significant interest among
international relations theorists in more
Lamarckian-inspired theories of evolution,
which is to say, theories that stress our ability to shape the environment rather than, as
Darwin had it, the ability of the environment to shape us.
From a Lamarckian perspective, life and
politics are not necessarily governed by death
struggles, as Darwinians believe. Far from
it: "The anarchic global vacuum," SterlingFolker writes, "has become increasingly
filled in the twentieth century thanks to the
development of modern science and technology."35 Advances in science and technology
Modern Age - Summer 2014

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