A self-help system means that the idea or notion of “collective security” is a non sequitur. If the system is a self-help system, which it is, then you cannot derive or deduce “collective security” from the basic logic or structure of the system that is based on self-help. Nevertheless, smaller countries in Europe, and countries such as Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan and the Philippines and South Korea and Japan among others will push hard for the United States to engage in a practice of “collective security” against supposed threats which pertain only to them and not to the United States. But if Taiwan were to be attacked and invaded by mainland China today, what is the United States even supposed to do about it? The United States cannot throw their bodies in front of a Chinese assault or invasion of Taiwan, especially when nothing could be done about Ukraine against Russia and Afghanistan against the Taliban or when Iran put a lightning show over Israel’s head recently. Attack China for the sake of Taiwan, and you will be attacked in like manner. Thus, the notion of “collective security” is erroneous and futile.
Once the logic of realism sets in, the transition from an absolute idealism where the basic assumption is that the fostering of economic interdependence can supplant conflict is replaced with the logic of realism as well as the basic concept that the system or the structure is based on anarchy and self-help, and in turn, state behavior is shaped entirely by anarchy and self-help and thus the basic principles of the system or structure. On a personal level, I have gone through this transition myself as of late. To borrow from Kenneth Waltz: “Structural constraints cannot be wished away, although many fail to understand this.” He added: “With each country constrained to take care of itself, no one can take care of the system.”
As a result, there is no “world government” above governments which can provide the solutions to world problems either. To borrow from Waltz: “World-shaking problems cry for global solutions, but there is no global agency to provide them. Necessities do not create possibilities. Wishing that final causes were efficient ones does not make them so.” This means that no one can place the “international interest” above the national interest. Change can occur only if the structure is changed, and a change in structure is virtually impossible because no one has the capabilities to bring about structural change.
In short: “Self-help is necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order.” Waltz added: “A self-help situation is one of high risk – of bankruptcy in the economic realm and of war in a world of free states.” As mentioned before, there is no “world government” which could control the militaries and institutions and organizations and agencies of individual states. Therefore, there is no hierarchical order in the international system which could manage the system and bring structural change. As Waltz wrote: “In a society of states with little coherence, attempts at world government would founder on the inability of an emerging central authority to mobilize the resources needed to create and maintain the unity of the system by regulating and managing its parts.” He added: “The prospect of world government would be an invitation to prepare for world civil war.” No one would want to give up their control and sovereignty over their own nation and territory to an aloof world government. In sum:
“States cannot entrust managerial powers to a central agency unless that agency is able to protect its client states. The more powerful the clients and the more the power of each of them appears as a threat to the others, the greater the power lodged in the center must be. The greater the power of the center, the stronger the incentive for states to engage in a struggle to control it.”
In other words, the result and outcome is the same, even if one seeks structural change and reform.
Adam A. Azim 