The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century

by Robert Cooper

Book Overview

Based on an essay that has been hailed as one of the most influential policy pieces published in the last decade, Robert Cooper sets out a radical new interpretation of the shape of the world in this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802141641
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.5" x 5.6"

Customer Reviews

An Overview of World Order in the 21st Centruy

Robert Cooper has written a brilliant book that takes a big-picture look at the vast scenery of the international community at the beginning of the 21st century. His short treatise is made up of three parts. The first is a discussion of the differences in makeup of pre-modern (the third world), modern (the U.S., Japan), and post-modern states (Western Europe). The second section is a discussion of diplomacy today. It is broken up into a discussion of five maxims for international relations: 10 foreigners are different; 2) in the end, what matters is domestic politics; 3) Influencing foreigners is difficult; 4) Foreign policy is not only about interests; and 5) Enlarge the context. The last section is a discussion of Europe and the U.S. today. This part has a special resonance as Cooper is currently the Director-General of the Council of the European Union. Cooper says that such simplistic postulations as Robert Kagan's in "Of Paradise and Power" that Europe and America are drifting apart because of different values are wrong. Europe and America may have different capabilities, but they want the same objectives. They both want to create conditions for prosperity and freedom. They both are threatened by rogue states and terrorists. However, Cooper sees the biggest problem in the relationship Europe's reluctance to create force capabilities that can work with the U.S. military by increasing defense spending. Cooper believes this is wrong and should be rectified before the problem becomes untenable. This is a short and concise work that should be widely read. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in international relations in the 21st century.

Towards a Postmodern World Order

In this remarkable book of essays, Robert Cooper, former foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair, gives a brilliant analysis of the present state of international relations. Since the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, modern European states have organized themselves according to two principles: empire and balance of power. This was known as the arena of the great powers and, in the 19th century, Japan and the United States joined the game. By 1945 most of the great powers were in shambles; there remained only the United States and the Soviet Union as two competing "imperial systems." And after 1989 there was only one, the United States as sole superpower. Many observers saw this as the global triumph of markets and democracy, and saw it as an end to the battle of ideas. Francis Fukuyama called it "the end of history." However, with the events of September 11, the world is again plunged into history and the battle of ideas, this time looking more like Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations." In his analysis of the present-day world, Cooper divides nation states into three types: premodern, modern, and postmodern. The premodern states are the "failed states." These states have lost their monopoly on the use of force; where governments have lost control to warlords, gangsters, terrorists, and other non-state actors (examples are Somolia, Liberia, and Afghanistan under the Taliban). These states have lost their sovereignty and chaos rules the day. The modern states are sovereign states that pursue their own national interests. They fit into the traditional balance of power or hegemonic scheme. For them the world is a jungle and world government interests them only insofar as it furthers their national interests. Prominent among the modern states are Russia, China, Brazil, and India; and most prominent among them, the United States. The postmodern world consists of nations that have relinquished much of their sovereignty to international governmental bodies, the primary example of this, of course, is the European Union. In Cooper's words it "is a highly developed system for mutual interference in each other's domestic affairs." European states gain their power from being completely vulnerable and transparent to each other. They operate on mutual security and rule of law. War between postmodern states would be next to impossible. Cooper believes this to be a higher level of civilization, but also sees the problem when not all states are postmodern. Cooper also rightly notes that the development of the European Union from the Treaty of Rome (1957) to the present day was underwritten by American power, without which it would not exist today. What is most interesting in Cooper's theory is the difference between how a postmodern and a modern state confront terror or genocide in the premodern world. Postmodern Europe failed to respond to genocide in the Balkans nor could it respond to terrorist attacks originating in premodern states. T

Chaos, the State, Europe and the US

"The Breaking Of Nations - Order And Chaos In The Twenty-First Century", by Robert Cooper is another of the currently popular books that tries to explain the historical sociological basis behind our international dilemma; the breakdown of the authority of the state and perhaps of authority in general. Starting with the generally accepted view of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Weber, that civilization and order rests on the legitimate control of violence by the state, Cooper examines the problems the world is facing with many non-state actors who use or threaten force and the states that are unable to exercise control over their own territory and are no longer responsible for the behavior of their citizens. These are the states he calls pre-modern. He further defines the pre-modern state as a post-imperial or colonial chaotic association where there is no real sovereign authority. In some cases these are the result of the decline of imperialism. Today, the general opinion being, that the rewards of imperialism are small and the burdens large, especially with a population hostile to being `colonials'. The result is all too often chaos, which may give rise to a `defensive' imperialism where nations may seek to control other states to maintain their own safety. Defensive imperialism is the latest interpretation of what used to be called a `buffer state' or `cordon sanitaire', a protective border zone to protect `us' from `them' or to keep potentially hostile neighbors apart. Nations have traditionally been secular and organized along ethnic or group identities. Their legitimacy has been derived from below rather than imposed from above. This is different than an empire, where the government is usually imposed from above and there is a non-homogenaeity of population. Frequently empires have strong religious elements (Ottoman, Mogul, Russian Orthodox, Soviet-Scientific Socialism) but no common relevant identity. When empires break up, however, identity becomes relevant for the first time as the chaos of tribal or ethnic division emerges. All of these situations lead to the Wilsonian idea of a nation-state that is sovereign, more or less homogeneous, and defined by fixed and defended or at least defendable borders. This is the type of state organization that Cooper calls modern. In this modern world order, force is still the ultimate guarantor of peace. Cooper calls these states modern because they are linked to the idea of the nation-state created by the Treaty of Westphalia, which he considers the engine that created the modern world. Both the `realist' theories based on the calculation of national interests and the so-called balance of power, and the `idealist' theories based on collective security and world government are considered `modern' because of their reliance on force to maintain order. By this measure, both the U.N. and the U.S. would be considered `modern' since the former has the use of force as a means of enforcement

Important discussion of a model of an emerging world order.

This book consists primarily of two essays on an emerging world order from the perspective of a British scholar and diplomat who has also participated in the European project. He is fully conversant in what Europe implies for Europe, but he is also fully conversant in (and sympathetic to) the British objections to Europe and the psychology of American foreign policy. Furthermore, it seems that this book is meant as a "third way" alternative to the "Power and Paradise" that Robert Kagan discusses in his book of that title (or "Power and Weakness", the title of the underlying Policy Review article that began the debate).Cooper takes several phenomena in the modern foreign policy world as new. The basic idea is the emergence of a post-Westphalian order that qualifies (and sometimes rejects) sovereignty. This emerged out of World War II (which he importantly compares to the Thirty Years' War in that it gave cause to radically change the international order), but the full implications are only now becoming apparent. There are a couple of features of this world order.First, new kinds of entities appear on the international scene which are not states, but to which states cede sovereignty. For example, the EU, the WTO, IAEA and NPT, verifiable arms control regimes, etc. In each of these, states give up sovereignty in exchange for various kinds of benefits, either in security or economic realms. Slowly, cooperation becomes the order of the day. He terms this "post-modern" international relations, and he calls the international order that existed between Westphalia and the end of World War II, "modern".Second, a post-modern international order depends on a modern hegemon like the United States. Someone has to affirm security and tradition interests and to enforce them. However, this creates a fundamental tension between the post-modern states and the modern states. It is interesting to compare this discussion with Huntington's (in Soldier and State)about the need for a conservative-realist military in a modern liberal state. Huntington, mistakenly, thought that liberalism would ultimatley fail in the Cold War. Cooper explores the current tensions that arise, but he does not attempt to predict the future as Huntington did.Third, he talks about the role of legitimacy in this context. How does legitimacy work when you have a necessary modern state, like the US, and a post-modern world order? How do you incorporate states that are failing or, perhaps, not yet even modern? Can states go from a sort of pre-modern state to a post-modern state? Do they have to pass through a variety of "modernity"? All important questions in an age of nation-building and an expanding European project. It is also interesting to see how much this agrees with the afterward to the 2nd edition of Kagan's book, discussed above. The Iraq war has made us realize these crises more.Unfortunately, I don't believe that Cooper addresses one of the more interesting questions, which is the rise

European multilateralism and American unilateralism can meet

As a result of 9/11 foreign policy is hot. The popularity of intelligent academic like books dedicated to the subject has soared. The American public seems finally to have caught up an insatiable thirst of knowledge for this esoteric subject. This is undeniably a very good thing. And, this book from Robert Cooper is an excellent tonic to quench this thirst for knowledge. Cooper is an excellent writer. His lively style renders his book easy to read. Also, he is so erudite on his subject matter that the amount of information and knowledge he shares within this relatively short book is truly remarkable. The core of the book is based on two essays Cooper wrote several years ago. The first one "The Condition of the World" originally written in 1996 is somewhat the better structured of the two. It develops a powerful foreign policy model by grouping nations into three categories. The first category consists of "pre-modern states." These are completely dysfunctional. They are typically broke, can't deliver any social services effectively, and the government's authority is often challenged by gangs, warlords, and other outlaws. Many African countries come to mind.The second category consists of "modern states." These are you regular sovereign nations working perfectly well on most counts. This is Australia, Japan, Canada, you name it. The third category consists of "post-modern states." This essentially describes the European Union, whereby a group of countries have agreed to relinquish some of their respective sovereign rights to a supranational political entity (EU) for the greater good of the respective community of countries. In Cooper's views this category is obviously the higher political life form. And, the other two "states" consist simply of sequential stepping stones towards this most evolved state. This is obviously a questionable assumption. Where Cooper sees the benefit of multilateralism, cooperation, free flowing trade within the EU. Someone else could just as well see excessive bureaucracy, an extra layer of government, analysis-paralysis devoid of any effective foreign policy, and a trading block that actually reduces trade opportunity within a truly freer trade framework (WTO). However, Cooper makes his case extremely well. He is a formidable debater and does make a convincing case for his political framework and the superiority of the EU post-modern states structure. Cooper somehow struggles a bit with the hegemonic status of the U.S. He concedes that the U.S. stands "outside and above" the post-modern structure. He also accepts that the world does indeed benefit from the U.S. protection umbrella. Without a strong leader setting a set of rules and examples, the world could easily fall into chaos of competing power blocks vying for the top spot. Thus, Cooper unlike many authors on the subject, finds himself both espousing European multilateralism and the American unilateralism. His second essay, enc