Russia's invasion of Ukraine surprised not only ordinary citizens but also international relations experts. Prof. Torbjørn Knutsen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology discusses why the economic approach to interstate relations has failed. The academic visited the UG Institute of Political Science as part of the Visiting Professors programme.

Marcel Jakubowski - One of your recent publications is a book about moral and political philosophers of Germany. Did their thought influence the modern political system and environment in Germany?

Prof. Torbjørn Knutsen: - It’s a book about thinkers of the German Enlightenment. It begins with Immanuel Kant and discusses his followers and critics – from Haman, Herder and Fichte, through Engels and Marx all the way to Nietzsche. These German thinkers have had an enormous influence on the history of political ideas in the West. One of Kant’s important ideas was that human beings cannot truthfully observe the world around them. Because whatever you observe through your senses is processed by your mind. Thus, it’s impossible to know whether what you see is actually a true representation of the real world or whether your mind has made it up. This idea was a seed that produced the philosophy of phenomenology at the beginning of the 20th century and which blossomed into postmodern thinking and relativism at the century’s end.

- So you’re saying that politics went in the direction where there is no objective truth?

- One implication for political thought is all individuals have their own interpretation of the world. And if you cannot determine what is true and what is not, then you open up for a radical form of relativism. We can observe this in many countries today, where absurd claims have entered into our political debates. Just listen to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Neither of them pays much attention to the truth. They are concerned with winning arguments and justifying their power. So Kant pointed to something that has become very important in our day and age. Our democratic system is based on the existence of truths. And if voters cannot distinguish between true claims and fake news, democracy is in deep trouble.

- Would Kant agree with the statement that power is truth? Because it seems to be a belief of Putin or Trump.

- Kant was not really a political philosopher. He was a philosopher of knowledge – he was concerned with how we perceive and how we learn. His philosophy has implications for politics, of course, but to be a political philosopher, you also need to have a concept of political power and a just distribution of social privileges and burdens. Kant was not much concerned with that. His main focus was on the workings of the human mind. Putin is concerned with power. But in my opinion, he is not concerned with truth. Whatever works for him is truth. The same goes for Trump – although I suspect that he is more of a pragmatic businessman who admires authorities and power. Trump doesn’t seem to have a political agenda except that of promoting his own name and business brand.

- You taught the University of Gdańsk’s students International Relations Theory course. What was the main point you wanted to get across?

- First of all, that students of politics must have a solid grounding in empirical facts – which in the Field of International Relations means that they must know international history. Second, that students understand that theories do not describe the real world but that they are streamlined simplifications of the world and that they develop scepticism towards them. For example, that they are sceptical towards economic models of rational choice and cost-benefit analysis. Don’t get me wrong. Such models are useful simplifications. In order to explain why a country behaves in a certain way, it makes sense to think in terms of cost and benefit. It makes good sense to ask what they gain by this behaviour. What kinds of resources do they need to carry it through, and how much does it cost? If the gain is bigger than the cost, go ahead. But if the cost is higher than the gain, don’t do it. This is a useful approach. However, my point is that this cannot be all you do. There is much more to politics than simple cost-benefit analyses. This economic way of thinking is useful if you know how to go beyond it. For example, since 2014, there has been a discussion on what Putin was up to in Ukraine. Most political analysts argued that he wasn’t going to invade because the costs of an invasion and the subsequent occupation would be very expensive. This turned out to be true. But because the analysts did not go beyond it, they drew the wrong conclusions. It turned out that Putin was willing to risk very high costs because he was not concerned with short-term benefits; he was worried about Russian civilisation in the long run and about saving the core of the Russian Empire. As political scientists, we were so focused on a cost-benefit analysis that we forgot about emotional aspects concerning national honour and imperial pride. Economists think that human beings are rational utility-maximisers all the time. But that is just not true. It is important to get across to students that politics is more than that.

- When did this cost-benefit way of thinking start to emerge in the field of International Relations? After the Cold War?

- No, long before the end of the Cold War. The big change was in the late 1970s. When the classic Realist approach was criticised for being too philosophical and vague. American scholars like Kenneth Waltz laid the basis for a new Realist theory based on the logic of micro-economics. This Neorealist approach explains a lot, but it doesn’t explain everything.

- Would you agree that states like China fit this cost-benefit theory?

- I think there is a limit to how much we can understand Chinese behaviour with Western economic models. Because in the West, we tend to think of states as sovereign and rational actors. In my opinion, Chinese leaders think differently. They think of China as an empire – and I wonder whether Putin thinks of Russia in the same way. A Western state is built around the concept of sovereignty, and it respects the sovereignty of other states. China and Russia have legacies of empires, and they seek to reduce the sovereignty of others.

- Did Putin’s invasion of Ukraine change a lot in International Relations Theory?

- Yes, many international experts were mistaken about Putin. Now they’re trying to understand why they were so wrong. They are introducing factors like imperial legacy, the culture of the nation, and the psychology of leaders to explain the behaviour of states. They are also reintroducing the old argument that states do not just seek power but that they also seek status and prestige.

- Are political scientists now going back to the theories from before the 1970s, or are they coming up with completely new concepts?

- Many scholars go even further back. A new subfield has emerged in International Relations (IR) over the last 25 years or so: Historical IR. It examines international relations over the last 500 years or so. It was triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – another Russian event that took the world by surprise. In the wake of that surprise, IR experienced a decade of turbulence and theoretical innovation. One of the major novelties of that decade was the Constructivist approach. It introduced sociological and anthropological theories to the study of IR. It began to explain state behaviour in terms of identity and status, honour, respect and recognition. And it made the point that such factors – and, indeed, the state itself – were the result of historical evolution. This way of thinking was strengthened by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

- You were a student of Henry Kissinger. What was the former State Secretary like as a lecturer?

- He was a brilliant lecturer. And a very good author. His most recent book came out earlier this year. It’s an excellent read for students of politics and diplomacy. Kissinger completed it when he was 99 years old. It’s called Leadership, and it examines six political leaders – among them are Charles De Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Richard Nixon, and Margaret Thatcher. Kissinger knew them all. And he explains why they were brilliant leaders and diplomats. Each leader is presented in an in-depth portrait. Together, these portraits add up to a perceptive overview of the international relations of the second half of the 20th century.

 - Did he write something about the current situation in Ukraine?

- He has written a few opinion pieces, which have been rather unpopular. Kissinger thinks like a realist and sees three possible outcomes of the war. The first is that Russia is driven back to the territory it controlled before the war – which would be a victory for Ukraine and the West. The second is that Russia keeps what it has conquered. Putin can justify this as a victory – and as a defeat for NATO. The third possible outcome is that the Russian advance is stopped, and the battleline returns to the position where the war started, with Russia keeping Crimea and provinces in the east but with Ukraine rearmed and closely connected to NATO, if not a part of it. This could be presented as a defeat of Russian aggression. Kissinger argues that any lasting solution must be the result of negotiations. And I would like to add that I think such negotiations are unlikely to produce a stable outcome. One reason for that is geographical: Ukraine and Russia will be stuck with a common, disputed border. This border will be very long, and it will have no natural markers in the form of mountains or rivers. Ukraine’s major challenge is that this border will be extremely expensive to monitor and maintain.

- Can we go back to normal after the war?

- No. Putin’s invasion took everybody by surprise. It changed the mindset in the West for a generation. And it altered the political landscape because Finland and Sweden reacted to it by applying for membership in NATO. In Sweden’s case, this broke a 250-year-long tradition of neutrality. After this, NATO will suddenly have a direct border with Russia that is twice as long as before, and that has left Russia without anny possibility for reintroducing its old security doctrine of defence in depth. I don’t think Putin foresaw that.

- What about the countries that are close to Russia’s influence zone, like Poland and Finland?

- Poland is in a very difficult position, similar to that of Norway. They’re close to Russia, so they must adopt a security strategy based on deterrence by being a member of NATO. But they cannot flaunt deterrence too much because the Russians may interpret that as a threat to its own security. Consequently, the policy towards Russia must also have elements of reassurance – for example, in the form of voluntary limits of military capabilities or foreign troops. The balance between deterrence and reassurance is very difficult to achieve because so much depends upon the perceptions in Moscow. I assume that the new government in Poland thinks in these terms.

- Is it difficult because Putin is not a rational, cost-benefit kind of leader?

- It is difficult because this is not an economic calculation; it’s a psychological game. To get the balance right, you’d have to understand how Putin and his inner circle circle thinks. You have to convince them that you’re not weak, but you also have to convince them that your strength is not aggressive. Today, this might be an impossible game, given Putin’s position.

- Thank you for this conversation.

-Thank you.