Interests, ideologies, and great power spheres of influence
| Author | Evan N. Resnick |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221098217 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221098217
European Journal of
International Relations
2022, Vol. 28(3) 563 –588
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661221098217
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejt
E
JR
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Interests, ideologies, and
great power spheres of
influence
Evan N. Resnick
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Abstract
Militarily aggressive actions by Russia and China in recent years have sparked a debate
among foreign policy commentators regarding the utility of spheres of influence, even as
International Relations (IR) scholars have continued to neglect the phenomenon. This
article tests three rival theories that attempt to explain the spheres of influence behavior
of great powers. Structural realism proposes that a great power will cede a small power
to the sphere of a rival that possesses a stronger material interest in the small power
and is a peer competitor, and that a consequent rupture or crisis in the sphere will
lead the great power to engage in vigorous but restricted cooperation with the restive
small power that maintains the previously granted sphere. Ideological distance theory
(IDT) hypothesizes that a great power will steadfastly oppose ceding an ideologically
homogeneous small power to the sphere of an ideologically divergent peer competitor,
and that a rupture in a previously granted sphere will result in noncooperation between
the great power grantor and restive small power if they are ideologically heterogeneous. I
introduce a third approach, modified ideological distance theory (MIDT), which predicts
that a great power will temporarily oppose ceding an ideologically homogeneous small
power to the sphere of an ideologically divergent peer competitor, and will engage in
delayed and attenuated cooperation with an ideologically heterogeneous small power
following a rupture in a peer competitor’s sphere. Examination of the United States’
relationship with Yugoslavia (1948–1955) and the Soviet Union’s relationship with Cuba
(1960–1962) demonstrates MIDT’s explanatory superiority.
Keywords
Spheres of influence, structural realism, ideological distance theory, modified
ideological distance theory, Tito-Stalin split, Cuban Missile Crisis
Corresponding author:
Evan N. Resnick, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Ave., Singapore 639798.
Email: iseresnick@ntu.edu.sg
1098217EJT0010.1177/13540661221098217European Journal of International RelationsResnick
research-article2022
Article
564 European Journal of International Relations 28(3)
Militarily aggressive actions by Russia and China in recent years have elicited warnings
by US policymakers that Washington will not tolerate their establishment of spheres of
influence (SOI). After Russia invaded neighboring Georgia in 2008, the George W. Bush
administration’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, publicly avowed that the United
States and Europe would “resist any Russian attempt to consign sovereign nations and
free people to some archaic ‘sphere of influence’” (U.S. Department of State, 2008).
Following Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014, Bush’s successor Barack
H. Obama bluntly warned Moscow that “[t]he days of empire and spheres of influence
are over” (Traynor, 2014). That same year, Obama responded to Chinese military provo-
cations against rival claimants to nearby maritime territories by proclaiming that “an
effective security order for Asia,” could not be based on “spheres of influence or coer-
cion, or intimidation” (White House, 2014). The Donald J. Trump administration’s
December 2017 National Security Strategy similarly cautioned that China seeks to “reor-
der the [Indo-Pacific] region in its favor,” while Russia “seeks to restore its great power
status and establish spheres of influence near its borders” (White House, 2017: 25). Most
recently, in the weeks leading up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine,
President Joseph R. Biden’s secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, asserted in a television
interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to recreate a sphere of influence
over neighboring countries was “unacceptable.” Blinken added, “We can’t go back to a
world of spheres of influence. That was a recipe for instability, a recipe for conflict, a
recipe that led to world wars” (U.S. Department of State, 2022).
Although foreign policy analysts have vigorously debated the wisdom of recent US
leaders’ aversion to spheres of influence in the pages of various policy magazines
(Allison, 2020; Beinart, 2018; Brands and Edel, 2018; Carpenter, 2014; Kagan, 2015),
International Relations (IR) theorists, especially realists, have continued their long-
standing neglect of the phenomenon. Only a tiny smattering of books and articles on
spheres of influence have ever appeared in the IR literature, leading one scholar of the
phenomenon, Susanna Hast (2014: p. vii), to lament, “The concept is characterized by
a conflict between the lack of theoretical interest in it in IR and, at the same time, the
frequent use of it in political discourse.” This essay aims to help redress the stark asym-
metry identified by Hast. Although spheres of influence have been almost universally
ignored by structural realists, the significant historical role they have played in efforts
to moderate great power security competition can be easily incorporated into the deduc-
tive logics of both the offensive and defensive streams of structural realist theory. These
theoretical approaches jointly propose that a great power will only grant a sphere of
influence (i.e. military predominance) over a given small power to a rival that possesses
a stronger material interest in that small power and is a peer competitor. Although
structural realism is indeterminate on the question of how a great power will generally
manage its relationship with a small power it has ceded to a peer competitor’s sphere,
it hypothesizes that if a rupture or crisis occurs within the sphere, the great power will
cooperate immediately and vigorously with the restive small power to enhance its
security and autonomy within the peer competitor’s sphere. I refer to this behavior as
optimal restricted cooperation.
I draw on the ideological distance theory (IDT) of international politics pioneered by
Mark Haas to advance two contending perspectives. In explaining the spheres of
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