투키디데스 함정(Tuchididdes Trap)과 킨들버거 함정(kindleberger trap)

찰스 킨들버그(1910.10.12~2003.7.7)

 

The Kindleberger Trap

• Joseph S. Nye

| Jan. 09, 2017

Charles Kindleberger, one of the intellectual architects of the Marshall Plan, argued that the disastrous decade of the 1930s was a result of the United States' failure to provide global public goods after it had replaced Britain as the leading power. Today, as China’s power grows, will it make the same mistake?

As US President-elect Donald Trump prepares his administration’s policy toward China, he should be wary of two major traps that history has set for him. The “Thucydides Trap,” cited by Chinese President Xi Jinping, refers to the warning by the ancient Greek historian that cataclysmic war can erupt if an established power (like the United States) becomes too fearful of a rising power (like China). But Trump also has to worry about the “Kindleberger Trap”: a China that seems too weak rather than too strong.

Charles Kindleberger, an intellectual architect of the Marshall Plan who later taught at MIT, argued that the disastrous decade of the 1930s was caused when the US replaced Britain as the largest global power but failed to take on Britain’s role in providing global public goods. The result was the collapse of the global system into depression, genocide, and world war. Today, as China’s power grows, will it help provide global public goods?

In domestic politics, governments produce public goods such as policing or a clean environment, from which all citizens can benefit and none are excluded. At the global level, public goods – such as a stable climate, financial stability, or freedom of the seas – are provided by coalitions led by the largest powers.

Small countries have little incentive to pay for such global public goods. Because their small contributions make little difference to whether they benefit or not, it is rational for them to ride for free. But the largest powers can see the effect and feel the benefit of their contributions. So it is rational for the largest countries to lead. When they do not, global public goods are under-produced. When Britain became too weak to play that role after World War I, an isolationist US continued to be a free rider, with disastrous results.1

Some observers worry that as China’s power grows, it will free ride rather than contribute to an international order that it did not create. So far, the record is mixed. China benefits from the United Nations system, where it has a veto in the Security Council. It is now the second-largest funder of UN peacekeeping forces, and it participated in UN programs related to Ebola and climate change.

China has also benefited greatly from multilateral economic institutions like the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. In 2015, China launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which some saw as an alternative to the World Bank; but the new institution adheres to international rules and cooperates with the World Bank.

On the other hand, China’s rejection of a Permanent Court of Arbitration judgment last year against its territorial claims in the South China Sea raises troublesome questions. Thus far, however, Chinese behavior has sought not to overthrow the liberal world order from which it benefits, but to increase its influence within it. If pressed and isolated by Trump’s policy, however, will China become a disruptive free rider that pushes the world into a Kindleberger Trap?

Trump must also worry about the better-known Thucydides Trap: a China that seems too strong rather than too weak. There is nothing inevitable about this trap, and its effects are often exaggerated. For example, the political scientist Graham Allison has argued that in 12 of 16 cases since 1500 when an established power has confronted a rising power, the result has been a major war.

But these numbers are not accurate, because it is not clear what constitutes a “case.” For example, Britain was the dominant world power in the mid-nineteenth century, but it let Prussia create a powerful new German empire in the heart of the European continent. Of course, Britain did fight Germany a half-century later, in 1914, but should that be counted as one case or two?

World War I was not simply a case of an established Britain responding to a rising Germany. In addition to the rise of Germany, WWI was caused by the fear in Germany of Russia’s growing power, the fear of rising Slavic nationalism in a declining Austria-Hungary, as well as myriad other factors that differed from ancient Greece.

As for current analogies, today’s power gap between the US and China is much greater than that between Germany and Britain in 1914. Metaphors can be useful as general precautions, but they become dangerous when they convey a sense of historical inexorableness.

Even the classical Greek case is not as straightforward as Thucydides made it seem. He claimed that the cause of the second Peloponnesian War was the growth of the power of Athens and the fear it caused in Sparta. But the Yale historian Donald Kagan has shown that Athenian power was in fact notgrowing. Before the war broke out in 431 BC, the balance of power had begun to stabilize. Athenian policy mistakes made the Spartans think that war might be worth the risk.

Athens’ growth caused the first Peloponnesian War earlier in the century, but then a Thirty-Year Truce doused the fire. Kagan argues that to start the second, disastrous war, a spark needed to land on one of the rare bits of kindling that had not been thoroughly drenched and then continually and vigorously fanned by poor policy choices. In other words, the war was caused not by impersonal forces, but by bad decisions in difficult circumstances.

That is the danger that Trump confronts with China today. He must worry about a China that is simultaneously too weak and too strong. To achieve his objectives, he must avoid the Kindleberger trap as well as the Thucydides trap. But, above all, he must avoid the miscalculations, misperceptions, and rash judgments that plague human history.

 

첫 번째 위험, 투키디데스 함정(Tuchididdes Trap)
이는 신흥 강국이 기존 패권 국가의 지위를 위협할 때 생기는 대결 국면을 의미한다. 고대 그리스 시대 아테네(신흥 세력)와 스파르타(지배 세력)의 전쟁 원인을 설명한 《펠로폰네소스 전쟁》의 저자 투키디데스 이름에서 따왔다. 미국이 보호무역 조치로 중국을 압박하고 중국이 ‘보복 카드’로 맞서는 현재 모습이 그때와 닮았다. 한국 정치도, 법무부와 검찰도, 관료마피아, 부동산패권 등도 마찬가지다.
두 번째 킨들버거 함정(kindleberger trap)
신흥 강국이 기존 패권국만큼 리더십을 발휘하지 못할 때 파생되는 재앙을 의미한다. 찰스 킨들버거 전 MIT 교수가 《대공황의 세계 1929~1939》에서 “기존 패권국 영국의 자리를 차지한 미국이 신흥 리더로서 역할을 다하지 못해 대공황이 생겼다”고 설명한 데서 유래했다. 당시 미국의 관세 폭탄으로 국제무역 규모가 3분의 1로 쪼그라들었다.
“1930년대 대공황은 왜 그렇게 광범위한 지역을 강타했는가. 왜 그토록 심각했고 오랫동안 지속됐으며 결국 2차대전으로 이어졌는가. 1차대전 후 패권국이 된 미국이 옛 패권국 영국이 했던 역할을 하려고 하지 않았기 때문이다.” 미국의 저명한 경제학자이자 역사가인 찰스 킨들버거는 그의 저서 ‘대공황의 세계 1929-1939’에서 세계적 혼란을 초래한 원인을 리더십 공백에서 찾았다. 힘 있는 나라가 패권국의 역할을 제대로 수행하지 않거나 거부하면 세계는 전쟁의 늪으로 빠져들 수밖에 없다는 것이다. 패권국을 논할 때 빠지지 않고 등장하는 이론이다. 킨들버거는 1930~1940년대 미국 재무성·연방준비위원회·국무성 등의 요직을 두루 거친 석학이다. 황폐해진 서유럽 부흥을 위해 마셜플랜을 기획한 인물이다. 그는 패권국이 해야 할 역할을 다섯 가지로 꼽았다.
△개방 시장 유지
△안정적 장기 대부 공급
△안정된 환율 시스템 유지
△각국의 거시정책 조율
△금융위기 시 최후의 대부자 역할 수행이다.
전체 이익을 위해 자기 희생도 하는 게 패권국의 덕목이라는 것이다. 그런데도 미국은 공황이 심각해지고 있는 가운데 자국 이익을 위해 100년래 최고의 관세를 매겼다. 이는 다른 나라의 연쇄 관세보복과 세계교역 급감, 국제통화 시스템 불안정으로 이어져 세계적인 혼란을 초래했다. 
출처 : 청주일보(http://www.cj-ilbo.com)