How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics) [Hardcover]

Charles A. Kupchan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 2010 | Series: Princeton Studies in International History and Politics

Is the world destined to suffer endless cycles of conflict and war? Can rival nations become partners and establish a lasting and stable peace? How Enemies Become Friends provides a bold and innovative account of how nations escape geopolitical competition and replace hostility with friendship. Through compelling analysis and rich historical examples that span the globe and range from the thirteenth century through the present, foreign policy expert Charles Kupchan explores how adversaries can transform enmity into amity--and he exposes prevalent myths about the causes of peace.

Kupchan contends that diplomatic engagement with rivals, far from being appeasement, is critical to rapprochement between adversaries. Diplomacy, not economic interdependence, is the currency of peace; concessions and strategic accommodation promote the mutual trust needed to build an international society. The nature of regimes matters much less than commonly thought: countries, including the United States, should deal with other states based on their foreign policy behavior rather than on whether they are democracies. Kupchan demonstrates that similar social orders and similar ethnicities, races, or religions help nations achieve stable peace. He considers many historical successes and failures, including the onset of friendship between the United States and Great Britain in the early twentieth century, the Concert of Europe, which preserved peace after 1815 but collapsed following revolutions in 1848, and the remarkably close partnership of the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s, which descended into open rivalry by the 1960s.

In a world where conflict among nations seems inescapable, How Enemies Become Friends offers critical insights for building lasting peace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Kupchan's magisterial accomplishment, drawing on an extraordinary range of theories and cases, is to provide an overarching account of when and why countries in conflict move toward stable peace. . . .This book will be read by scholars and policy thinkers for a very long time. (G. John Ikenberry Foreign Affairs )

Kupchan has a lucid style and writes with authority and wisdom. In the course of his argument, he knocks firmly on the head a number of dangerously misleading nostrums. (G. R. Berridge Hague Journal of Diplomacy )

[Kupchan] is one of those rare Americans with a genuinely global view of international relations. . . . By the time he reaches the end of his brilliant analysis, Kupchan has shown that diplomacy and wilful compromise are the real foundations of peace. (les Andreani,"Survival )

This wide-ranging comparative historical study seeks to discover why and how some adversaries not only achieved friendship but created zones of durable peace. (Choice )

How Enemies Become Friends is an ambitious book, which, through a combination of theoretical understanding and in-depth case studies, delivers a powerful argument that champions Obama's policy of engagement with Iran and China. Such an important topic demands vigorous analysis, which Kupchan is well qualified to deliver. . . . This book is entitled to serious consideration by those in the field of international relations. (Grace Nicholls Majalla )

[A] learned, lucid, fascinating account. (Robert Cornwall Christian Century )

How Enemies Become Friends is a highly important contribution to the debate in the United States on how to manage U.S. foreign and security policy in a world of considerably reduced U.S. power. Above all, Kupchan provides the historical and theoretical underpinning for ideas of strategic accommodation: the need for America to take large-scale and visible steps to acknowledge the power and the interests of other states, and, when necessary, to scale back its own regional ambitions and roles. . . . The greatest strength of Kupchan's book is its extraordinarily wide-ranging account of different processes of strategic accommodation, restraint, and reconciliation through history--including a number of examples that are very rarely examined in international relations studies (the case of the Iroquois, for one). (Anatol Lieven Democracy )

[A]n appropriately nuanced account of peacemaking that smartly frustrates traditional boundaries. (Ethics & International Affairs )

[T]his is an important and eminently practical and transparent book of value to diplomats and statesmen. . . . [I]n substance it is a clear and compelling one that, in addition, takes one into exotic politico-historic case study lore that you probably never knew before. I recommend it. (Marc E. Nicholson AmericanDiplomacy.org )

Kupchan's theoretical enterprise is as ambitious as the scope of his empirical inquiry is impressive. . . . Kupchan gives his readers a lot of material to ponder. (Shiping Tang World Politics )

In a fascinating . . . book, How Enemies Become Friends, Charles A. Kupchan reviews many historical case studies of how nation-states with a long history of conflict managed eventually to become secure and peaceful friends. (Robert Shiller Project Syndicate )

His book makes an important contribution to peace studies and it provides insights into less known cases from Asia and the Arab world. . . . [H]is arguments are . . . very convincing, and he gives us a better understanding of peace in international relations. (Alexander Kleibrink Global Policy )

[T]his book represents a provocative, compelling and eminently readable account of how international peace is forged and maintained. (Peter Harris Political Studies Review )

From the Inside Flap

"Kupchan's book is fascinating, thought provoking, and consequential."--Henry Kissinger

"Using historical studies of rapprochement, security community, and union as pillars for a stable world order in the twenty-first century, Charles Kupchan once again leapfrogs conventional foreign policy wisdom. He rightly foresees the elements of and a blueprint for a new global commons, one constructed of mutual interest. This is a mature work produced by a mature thinker."--Gary Hart, former U.S. Senator

"This is a work of admirable breadth and unusual interest. Combining an interesting theoretical framework with an extraordinarily diverse set of case studies, Kupchan has produced a lucid work that should be valued by both the academic and policymaking worlds in sorting out the relationships among classic diplomacy, democracy, and peace."--Anthony Lake, Georgetown University

"In this intellectual tour de force Charles Kupchan provides a theoretically ambitious, admirably eclectic, and empirically rich account of the different worlds of international relations that are normally studied in isolation: anarchy, rapprochement, security community, and union. Statecraft not regime attributes, and politics not economic interdependence, put enemies on the pathway to peace, starting with unilateral accommodation and ending with the generation of new narratives and identities. This is a big book in every sense of the word and a major scholarly achievement."--Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University

"Theoretically ambitious and historically audacious, How Enemies Become Friends is an invaluable and timely contribution to our understanding of the causes of war and peace. Grounded in international relations scholarship and informed by an intimate knowledge of the actual practice of international security, Kupchan's book deserves to be read by scholars and practitioners alike."--Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota

"This is an extremely ambitious book about a very important topic. It delivers through a well-crafted combination of theoretical innovation and detailed case studies. Kupchan offers a powerful and carefully assembled argument that will have a substantial impact on the field of international relations."--Daniel Deudney, Johns Hopkins University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (January 25, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691142653
• ISBN-13: 978-0691142654
• Product Dimensions: 1.3 x 6.6 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly and Thought-Provoking May 31, 2010

By The Machine

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Making peace between nations is less sexy than making war but Atlanticist Charles Kupchan delivers. His basic thesis is that stable peace can occur through a four-phase process: unilateral accommodation; reciprocal restraint between nations; societal integration; and the generation of new narratives and identities. Kupchan further argues that stable peace emerges when three conditions are present among states: institutionalized restraint, compatible social orders and cultural commodity. In the absence of one or more of these conditions, stable peace will not endure. To support his argument, Kupchan provides detailed historical examples where peace has succeeded and failed: U.S. and Great Britain (success); Norway and Sweden (success); Brazil and Argentina (success); China and Russia (failure); and Great Britain and Japan (failure). While brillantly luminating the historical successes and failures of stable peace in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Kupchan could have tested his hypothesis on the Israeli-Egyptian peace process. Moreover, although Kupchan does not explicitly say that peace is possible in the Near East between Iran and the United States or even Iran and Israel, he is careful to imply that there are limitations to achieving stable peace.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A ground-breaking work March 23, 2011

By Marc E. Nicholson

Format:Hardcover

I recently wrote a review of this book for AmericanDiplomacy.org, an on-line journal run by retired US diplomats (of whom I am one). With their permission, I repeat it here:

In his book "How Enemies Become Friends," Georgetown University professor and former Clinton Administration National Security Council (NSC) staff member Charles Kupchan seeks to answer two questions: what are the step-by-step processes by which nations bilaterally or multilaterally construct lasting bonds of peace (defined by Kupchan as ranging from durable rapprochement to actual federation or union), and what are the pre-conditions for the success of such efforts. The book is highly relevant as a "how to" guide for the construction of conflict-free zones, even as it is realistic in suggesting at least implicitly that the conditions necessary for such zones may be more the exception than the rule in much of today's world. Kupchan's book thus is idealistic in its goals but tempered by pragmatism, perhaps reflecting its author's background as both an academic and a practitioner of foreign policy.

That dual background is similarly reflected in the book's style and approach. Kupchan opens with a jargon-filled review of past academic and theoretical literature bearing on the issue, then proceeds to lay out his own answers in the form of a model. The bulk of the book thereafter is devoted to a wide-ranging set of case studies of both successful and unsuccessful efforts at rapprochement, formal rule-bound security communities, and actual unions of sovereign states, in light of whose experiences Kupchan seeks to support and fine-tune his conclusions.

The result of this overall structure, and of the "summary/details/conclusions" structure of each of the case studies chapters and even of the individual cases within them, is a considerable degree of repetition, which is not helped by the prose, best described as workmanlike. This is not an elegant or sprightly read. But the opposite side of that coin is that the prose is crystal-clear and free of the Hegelian-like obscurities that sometimes tempt academics. In that clarity, if not in concision, the book resembles the memos Kupchan had to write for President Clinton while serving in the NSC as a European Affairs Director. The constant re-stating of conclusions supported by a broad range of case studies also underlines that this is not a book of disembodied theory but a persuasive distilling of lessons drawn from a great deal of on-the-ground observation.

So what are those conclusions? Diplomats will be heartened, because Kupchan posits that the process of building conflict-free zones invariably begins with diplomacy--normally impelled by an emergent need or threat (internal or external)--which leads a state to reach out to its neighbor(s) with unilateral concessions of accommodation. These most often come from the stronger party, which can afford them. If they lead to a reciprocal habit of accommodation between states based on growing trust in mutual benign intent, the stage is set for the meeting of minds of their elites possibly to broaden into increased contact and cultural/economic transactions between entire societies, which in turn creates additional interest groups with a stake in peace. Finally, to one degree or another depending upon whether mutual trusting engagement remains an elite construct or also has engaged the masses, the states involved in reconciliation create new narratives which recast the identities they hold of each other in a way that stresses their similarity and common heritage. The "other" has become "us," making war even more unthinkable.

Some of Kupchan's most interesting conclusions concern the pre-conditions for success of these processes. First, he maintains that while internal democracy (or lesser forms of "institutional restraint") make it easier for states to create trusting conflict-free zones of restraint among themselves, it is not a pre-condition and in some cases can produce populist nationalism that impedes mutual accommodation abroad. Autocratic elites (e.g., the 19th century Concert of Europe) are in fact able to exercise external restraint among each other to create lasting peace.

Second, Kupchan refutes the widespread assumption that economic integration is a pathway to peace between states. He finds that, historically, political accommodation almost invariably precedes a deepening of social/economic contacts between societies, and that a subsequent political breakdown between them unravels (and is not precluded by) economic ties. (This, if true, is bad news for those who hope that economic integration between the West Bank and Israel can ultimately sooth and solve the political conflicts between the parties.)

Third, Kupchan concludes that a precondition for development of conflict-free zone is a compatibility of social orders between the participants (otherwise, key interest groups in one nation will find themselves threatened and will block close ties with another), and cultural commonality--based primarily on ethnicity, race, and religion--which gives states an initial sense of possibility of mutual accommodation and eases the creation of a shared narrative. Perhaps sensing that he is on politically incorrect ground with Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis, Kupchan explicitly distances himself by asserting that cultural commonality dramatically increases the chances of stable peace, but that civilizational differences do not make war inevitable. He does not support the latter assertion; it's not the business of his book, and the point was to provide him cover from those (especially on the left) who detest Huntington. But frankly, I suspect the two are not that far apart.

Particularly heartening and interesting is Kupchan's multiple illustrations of the malleability of popular narratives as to what a nation is and how it relates to other nations and peoples. Within limits, a former enemy or rival can be imaginatively redefined as a member of the family. (Witness the sea change in US and UK popular views of each other in the 1890s, from potential enemies to brothers within the Anglo-Saxon community.) Elite statements and the media play a crucial role in this.

If you're looking for the essential conclusions of this book, you need go no further than the first two chapters. But the rest of the book in its case studies provides ground-truth evidence and, even if far from scintillating to read, it is interesting (dare i say at times entertaining) for the wide variety of historical (and sometimes obscure) vignettes it offers in those case studies, ranging from the Swiss Confederation to the Iroquois Confederation, the Council of Europe, to the United Arab Republic, and so on. Even while absorbing Prof. Kupchan's demonstrations of his model, one also delves into a lot of interesting historical byways of which one perhaps knew little or nothing before.

In sum, this is an important and eminently practical and transparent book of value to diplomats and statesmen. Stylistically it's a dull read, but in substance it is a clear and compelling one that, in addition, takes one into exotic politico-historic case study lore that you probably never knew before. I recommend it.