Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Denver Journal of International Law and Policy
2005

I. INTRODUCTION

The relationship between Christianity and Islam vaulted to great national importance following the September 11, 2001 attacks and the “war on terror” that the United States declared thereafter. Since the attacks, various commentators have attempted to contextualize the role that religion plays in this conflict. For example, Salman Rushdie, in a much-discussed New York Times op-ed, declared bluntly that the war in Afghanistan following the September 11th attacks was “about Islam.” (1) On the other hand, the Toronto Star editorialized: “That the Sept. 11 hijackers were Arab Muslims says no more than that Timothy McVeigh was Christian or Baruch Goldstein was Jewish.” (2) But regardless of these differences between commentators, virtually nobody would argue that religion is simply irrelevant to the war on terror. Whether it is expressed through fears that combat on Islamic soil will inflame the Muslim street (3) or concern about the influx of Christian missionaries that have tended to follow such military operations, (4) virtually all observers agree that religion is a significant factor in this conflict.

Without a proper appreciation of both Muslim religious sensibilities and the manner in which the West is perceived by that faith’s adherents, policymakers do indeed risk exacerbating extant problems, by, for example, increasing public sympathy for terrorists within the Islamic world. Thus, this article describes a powerful strain of thought that has historically existed within both Christianity and Islam, and that continues to guide a significant number of both faiths’ adherents today. This strain of thought holds that both religions possess distinct geographical “spheres of influence,” in the same way that nation-states are thought to possess their own spheres of influence. (5) Thus, Christians whose worldviews are shaped by this concept will be very concerned about perceived encroachments into the “Christian West,” while Muslims who share this perspective will be worried about the erosion of Islam’s power within the “Islamic world.”

The notion that Christianity and Islam possess distinct geographical spheres of influence is by no means universally held by Christians and Muslims. However, a large number of adherents to both faiths conceptualize their religion as possessing a geographical sphere of influence. Moreover, the believers who hold this view tend to wield disproportionate influence within both faiths. (6) This view thus merits our attention, since even small, committed groups of believers have often heavily influenced the course that Christianity and Islam have followed. (7) A framework for understanding the interactions between the Christian world and Muslim world that takes into account this perception of religious spheres of influence can thus help to reduce the potential for conflict between the two faiths.

The spheres of influence concept is usually identified with both realist and neorealist theories of international relations (IR), which argue that nation-states seek to maximize their power. (8) The perception of Christians and Muslims who believe that their faith possesses a geographic sphere of influence mirrors the predictions of realist IR theories; these adherents view their faith as operating in a manner similar to the nation-state, with the religion’s power waxing or waning in relation to a variety of competitors. Indeed, they may view their religion as a more vital and more legitimate actor than the nation-state. (9) However, this article employs liberal IR theory to examine how this perception of religious spheres of influence affects the way that individuals and states behave internationally. In contrast to realism, the liberal theory of international relations places greater emphasis on state-society relations than on the structural relationship between nation-states. (10)

Although realist theory holds that spheres of influence are only one strategy among many that nation-states may employ to expand their power, Christians and Muslims who believe that their faith possesses a geographic component view spheres of influence as far more important to their religion than to nation-states. Such believers perceive spheres of influence as an essential strategy. In part, they think spheres of influence are important for reasons rooted in the history and doctrines of both faiths, (11) but there is also a structural reason for this view. This structural reason derives from the facts that while religions may be powerful elements within the state–and while some religions may even deny that any separation should exist between the state and the faith (12)–religions are not themselves coterminous with the nation-state. Instead, both Christianity and Islam are today forced to vie for power within the state. The spheres of influence strategy provides the nation-state a reason to act on the dominant religion’s behalf and also generates pressure from the faithful demanding that the state do so. (13)

Both Christianity and Islam enjoy religious primacy within their perceived spheres of influence. Many adherents to both faiths seek to expand these spheres of influence while simultaneously preventing competitors from gaining a foothold within them. One way these adherents attempt to expand their religions’ spheres of influence is through aggressive proselytism. (14) Also, both religions often employ the coercive power of the state to increase their power and inhibit competitors’ growth (although in the contemporary context, this is done more frequently and more dramatically in the Islamic world). Individual adherents to the dominant religion may simultaneously attempt to discourage competitors’ growth independent of the state’s policies. In their extreme form, these efforts may result in religiously motivated violence, but such efforts are not always so sinister.

The main competitors that Christianity and Islam face within their perceived spheres of influence today are other faiths, secularism, and certain sects within the same religion. Despite this variegated competition, Christians who believe in a Christian sphere of influence are especially wary of Islam, while Muslims who believe in an Islamic sphere of influence are especially wary of Christianity. This mutual suspicion stems both from the faiths’ historical relationship and also from the fact that, in the words of R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, they are “major competitors … for the convictions and the souls of human beings around the world.” (15) Indeed, while Christianity is the world’s largest faith, (16) Islam is acknowledged to be one of the world’s fastest growing religions. (17)

Part II explains the concept of spheres of influence. Thereafter, Parts III and IV illuminate the perception held by a significant number of Muslims and Christians that their faiths possess geographic spheres of influence, as well as the historical and contemporary strategies that adherents to both religions have employed to preserve and expand these spheres. (18)

Finally, this article concludes by discussing the predictive value of applying the spheres of influence concept to the relationship between Christianity and Islam, and by suggesting policy prescriptions that follow from the concept’s application. If Western policymakers are sensitive to the widespread perception in the Muslim world that the Islamic faith possesses a geographical sphere of influence, and if they are aware of the potential for their own actions to be perceived as attempts to extend the Christian sphere of influence, then they should be able to reduce the potential for their pursuit of the war on terror–as well as other actions that they take within the perceived Muslim sphere of influence–to result in more recruits to the terrorists’ cause.

II. FRAMEWORK

This Part describes the “spheres of influence” framework. Part II.A defines and discusses the spheres of influence concept in the context of the nation-state because this is the context in which scholars have traditionally understood and developed the concept. Part II.B then discusses how the idea of spheres of influence can help to produce a better understanding of the relations between Christianity and Islam.

A. Nation-States’ Use of Spheres of Influence

1. Early Use of Spheres of Influence

A “sphere of influence” is a geographic area within which a dominant state exerts its power and attempts to exclude other states outside the region from doing so. (19) A state’s sphere of influence will, of course, include the territory within its own borders. But, in addition, a state’s sphere of influence will typically include an area beyond its borders. This area may be large or small. It may be one that the state firmly controls and from which the state successfully excludes competing states, or it may be a sort of buffer zone or disputed frontier area in which a state struggles with other states for influence or supremacy. A state’s sphere of influence is like a set of concentric circles, the innermost being the state’s own territory, often followed by geographic areas that are outside of the state but that the state controls (through allegiances, agreements, or even brute force), and ending with the outermost circle, which includes contested regions overlapping with the outermost spheres of another state (or states). The outermost circles, where states’ spheres overlap, are where inter-state conflicts commonly emerge.

The term “spheres of influence” describes more than just geographic areas, however. It also describes a strategy that has been used since the advent of the nation-state. The strategic concept of “spheres of influence” refers to the method by which states define, defend, and expand territory under their control, while attempting to undermine competing states’ attempts to do the same. They employ this strategy in order to maintain their security or increase their power. States may establish tacit spheres of influence by exerting military or economic might within a less powerful region, or merely by announcing their intent to do so. States may formally establish spheres of influence through agreements, either between the more powerful state and the less powerful state within its sphere, or between two powerful states that agree not to interfere in each others’ spheres of influence. Such agreements may be consensual or coercive. (20) It is this sense of the term–spheres of influence as a strategy–that is central to this article’s analysis of the relations between Christianity and Islam.

In the United States, perhaps the earliest explicit manifestation of the spheres of influence strategy was the Monroe Doctrine–President Monroe’s famous decision in 1823 to exclude European powers from the Western Hemisphere. The traditional realist view of this doctrine is that it “arose from the attempt of the Holy Alliance–composed of Prussia, Russia, and Austria–to suppress the revolution in Spain in the 1820s.” (21) The United States, fearing that the Holy Alliance’s intervention in Spain would spill over into intervention in Spain’s colonies in Latin America, responded with a policy designed to exclude European colonialism from the Americas. (22) The Monroe Doctrine moved American foreign policy from merely opposing American intervention in struggles in Europe to opposing European intervention in the Americas. (23) It defined the United States’ sphere of influence as encompassing all of the Western Hemisphere.

“For the greater part of American history,” the Monroe Doctrine defined “the American national interest.” (24) After defining its sphere of influence, the United States exerted its power to defend and enlarge this sphere of influence by keeping other states out. For example, Henry Kissinger describes President Polk’s 1845 incorporation of Texas into the United States and President Andrew Johnson’s 1868 purchase of Alaska as preemptive efforts by the United States to defend its sphere of influence against even the possibility of an outside threat. (25) By the early 1900s, the United States had gone so far as to proclaim its sovereignty over virtually all of North America and had strongly encouraged, if not forced, even Great Britain to abandon its role there. (26) The Monroe Doctrine was alive and well in 1919, when President Wilson unhesitatingly cited it as a focal point of the new international order that he envisioned. (27) And in 1939, soon after the Nazi occupation of Prague, President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that “the continued political, economic and social independence of every small nation in the world does have an effect on our national safety and prosperity. Each one that disappears weakens our national safety and prosperity.” (28) Although the United States did not act on this articulated principle until after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt’s reasoning was an aggressive application of the spheres of influence paradigm: America, in order to defend its sphere, will defend smaller countries to prevent the emergence of threats to its core territory.

The United States is not the only country to adopt the spheres of influence paradigm. Kissinger observes, for example, that Russia had, for two hundred years before Stalin arrived on the scene, continuously attempted to resolve disputes with its neighbors

   bilaterally rather than at international conferences. Neither

   Alexander I in the 1820s, Nicholas I thirty years later, nor

   Alexander II in 1878 understood why Great Britain insisted on

   interposing itself between Russia and Turkey. In these and

   subsequent instances, Russian leaders took the position

   that they were entitled to a free hand in dealing with their

   neighbors. (29)

2. The Cold War

The Cold War, and the strategy of containment that accompanied it, was the most vivid realization of the spheres of influence concept. (30) For approximately forty years, the United States and Soviet Union each defined a sphere of influence, defended it primarily against intrusion by the other, and attempted to enlarge it at the expense of the other. (31) Just as the Soviet Union viewed the United States as inherently and ideologically expansive, (32) the United States viewed the Soviet Union in the same way, understanding the world as one of zero-sum competition in which any gain for the Soviets was a loss for the Americans. (33)

As a result of both countries’ perceptions that the other power posed a substantial threat, bipolar competition between the United States and Soviet Union was intense during the Cold War. This competition resulted in a virtual dividing of the planet into either part of the United States’ sphere of influence, part of the Soviet Union’s sphere, or in some instances neutral or nonaligned blocks. Samuel Huntington describes this period: “For the forty years of the Cold War, conflict permeated downward as the superpowers attempted to recruit allies and partners and to subvert, convert, or neutralize the allies and partners of the other superpower.” (34) The United States, for example, announced the Truman Doctrine–a policy, modeled on the Monroe Doctrine and intellectually rooted in the spheres of influence paradigm, of allying with and defending democratic nations throughout the world. (35) The Soviets did the same for their Communist counterparts.

To illustrate, the United States expanded its sphere by exerting influence over Western Europe (countries such as West Germany and Italy), Northeast Asia (Japan), and the Persian Gulf. The Soviet Union did the same by defining several Eastern European countries as its client states. Soviet leaders required these satellite states to consult with the Soviet Union, and had the right to pick their heads of government. (36) Frequently, “appointments to major Party positions in Eastern Europe were only given to those individuals with extensive experience in Moscow.” (37) The Soviet Union was able to pursue such a heavy-handed Eastern Europe policy because “[t]he Americans accepted a Soviet sphere of influence.” (38)

Although the United States and Soviet Union occasionally directly asserted themselves within each other’s spheres of influence during the Cold War, (39) they did so rarely. Both powers were far more likely to try to alter policies within the other’s sphere through persuasion or attempts to create an international consensus in order to pressure the other power into altering the policies it pursued within its sphere of influence.

B. Spheres of Influence in the Relationship Between Christianity and Islam

1. Theoretical Foundations of the Spheres of Influence Concept

Two separate IR theories–realism and liberal theory–help to shed light on the implications of Christians’ and Muslims’ perception that their religions possess geographic spheres of influence. Realist IR theory illuminates the perception of believers who hold that their faith possesses a geographic sphere of influence; these adherents view their faith as operating in a manner similar to nation-states, with the religion’s power either increasing or decreasing relative to such competitors as other faiths, secularism, and “deviant” sects within the same religion. In turn, liberal IR theory helps us to understand how this perception of religious spheres of influence affects the behavior of individuals and states on an international level.

a. Realism

The spheres of influence concept is most consistent with, though not inextricably linked to, the realist school of IR articulated by political scientists such as Hans Morganthau, (40) Kenneth Waltz, (41) and John Mearsheimer. (42) Realists hold “three core beliefs.” (43) First, realists hold that states are the principal actors in international politics. (44) Second, realists believe that the anarchic international system, rather than the internal characteristics of states, primarily dictates states’ behavior. (45) Realism’s third and final core belief is that states compete for power or security. (46)

According to the defensive realism commonly associated with Waltz, states focus on maintaining the status quo–not on maximizing their power, but on maintaining what they have. (47) According to defensive realism: “The international system itself provides incentives for expansion and aggressive strategies only under very limited conditions. States can often achieve security by pursuing moderate foreign policies.” (48)

In contrast, according to the offensive realism most commonly associated with Mearsheimer, “[t]he overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power” rather than merely to maintain the balance of power. (49) Great powers, according to offensive realism, have hegemony as their ultimate aim because a state maximizes its chances for survival only by being the sole power in the system. (50) They are not content with the status quo distribution of power, but rather seek to gain for themselves a greater share, by war if the costs are sufficiently low, or by waiting for more favorable circumstances to initiate force. (51)

Although realism is inherently state-centered, and does not “take account of domestic political ideology or structure, or of the multiplicity of sub-state actors that determine state policy at the domestic level,” (52) realist theory has value in helping us to understand how many Christians and Muslims believe their religions’ spheres of influence operate. After all, most Christians and Muslims who believe that their faith possesses a geographic sphere of influence also view their religion as an independent international actor capable of challenging the nation-state–and perhaps, as a more legitimate actor than the nation-state. Moreover, realism’s focus on power in international relations provides further insight into how many Christians and Muslims view the relations between Christianity and Islam. As R. Albert Mohler noted, Christianity and Islam are “major competitors” for the “convictions and souls” of people worldwide. (53) Many Christians and Muslims see this competition as zero-sum, wherein any gain that Islam makes within the Christian world produces a net loss for Christianity, and any inroads that Christianity makes within the Muslim sphere of influence represents a net loss for Islam.

The implications of this perception varies from believer to believer. Mirroring Mearsheimer’s offensive realism, some Christians and Muslims think that their religion should aim for hegemony, and attempt to marginalize other faiths that pose a major challenge. (54) On the other hand, more similar to Waltz’s defensive realism, some Christians and Muslims are more concerned with maintaining the religious traditions of the societies in which they live than in aggressively spreading their faith.

b. Liberalism

Liberal IR theory provides us with further insight into the implications of the perception of religious spheres of influence by demonstrating how this perception affects the way that individuals and states behave internationally. The central insight of liberal IR theory is that “state-society relations–the relationship of states to the domestic and transnational social context in which they are embedded–have a fundamental impact on state behavior in world politics.” (55) This view contrasts with realism, which holds states to be autonomous, unified actors driven by their power position vis-a-vis other states. (56)

Traditionally, liberal scholars have downplayed their theory’s salience as a coherent alternative to realism and institutionalism. Instead, they have focused on teleological observations that form the “liberal family.” These include the theoretical possibility of international peace, (57) the strong proclivity for peace among democratic states and capitalist economies, (58) and the propensity of liberal states to comply with international law. (59) Liberal theory is also associated with a number of normative prescriptions that stem from its concern for the individual, including support for human rights and free enterprise. For these reasons, some scholars–even those sympathetic to liberalism–have stressed that it is not “canonical,” (60) that it “is not committed to ambitious and parsimonious structural theory,” (61) and that it is best seen as an “approach” as opposed to a theory. (62)

Recently, however, Andrew Moravcsik has led an attempt to reformulate liberal IR theory into a “nonideological and nonutopian form appropriate to empirical social science.” (63) It is this more scientific understanding of liberalism that is useful to understanding how Christians’ and Muslims’ perception that their religions possess spheres of influence affects international relations. Moravcsik refines liberalism’s focus on state-society relations into three core assumptions. First, in contrast to realism, liberalism holds that the fundamental actors in international politics are individuals and private groups. (64) Second, liberalism holds that states (or other political institutions) represent some subset of domestic society, on the basis of whose interests state officials define state preferences. (65) Third, liberalism holds that the configuration of interdependent state preferences determines state behavior. (66)

Liberalism is thus a “bottom-up” theory in which individuals and aggregations of individuals are the primary drivers of politics. As Moravcsik explains: “Socially differentiated individuals define their material and ideational interests independently of politics and then advance those interests through political exchange and collective action.” (67) The state, then, is “not an actor but a representative institution constantly subject to capture and recapture, construction and reconstruction by coalitions of societal actors.” (68) In this view, state behavior is chiefly motivated by those individuals and groups able to foist their preferences on the state–either through elections, violence, or other means.

It is important to note that this assumption applies equally to pluralistic and tyrannical regimes; the societal coalition determining state policy can range from a broad-based political party to a narrow cadre of elites. In each case, however, it is sub-state, societal actors that drive policy. For this reason, liberal IR theorists see regime type–insofar as it marks a certain arrangement of political power amongst the societal actors within a state–as “a key determinant of what states do internationally.” (69)

Once they have captured the state, dominant societal actors convert their beliefs and desires into “state preferences.” These preferences “are by definition causally independent of the strategies of other actors and, therefore, prior to specific interstate political interactions.” (70) Whereas realism attributes state behavior primarily to an exogenous variable–inter-state power relations–liberalism emphasizes the endogenous preferences of societal forces as the “first” motivator of state behavior, relegating strategic considerations to a secondary consideration. However, as the third assumption of liberalism listed above implies, this constraint imposed by other states is “binding.” (71) Though a state’s preferences may be determined by dominant internal actors, its actual behavior must take into account the policies of other competing or cooperating states. It is only at this stage that power relations enter the liberal calculus. Thus, liberal theory holds that state behavior is fundamentally driven by the preferences of dominant societal interests, which is then constrained at the international level by the “configuration of interdependent state preferences.” (72)

While spheres of influence are discussed primarily in the realist literature, (73) liberal theory is capable of explaining them both as a historical phenomenon and also as an abstract strategy. The Monroe Doctrine, for example, is traditionally seen through a realist lens, with a young America asserting its growing strength vis-a-vis the more established European powers. (74) In this view, the desire of the United States to exclude other powers from its “backyard” arose from a strategic consideration, specifically the need to prevent the conflict between the Holy Alliance and Spain from spilling into Spain’s American colonies. In contrast, a liberal reading of the Monroe Doctrine would emphasize the desire of political elites in the United States, eager to realize their “manifest destiny,” to build their nation into a world power and promote their domestic values abroad. (75) It would also consider the influence of U.S. business interests, which were eager to avoid European competition in Latin American markets. (76)

Though it identifies different factors that push states to adopt spheres of influence as a strategy, liberalism does not differ from realism when considering the strategic benefits of employing spheres of influence. Liberalism’s assumption that social actors–rather than nation-states–are the fundamental units of IR analysis does not preclude liberal theorists from recognizing the importance of power differences as a constraint on state behavior. Indeed, liberal theorists perceive the same strategic benefits that realists see in the use of spheres of influence.

Liberal IR theory would hold that states that fall within either the perceived Christian or Muslim spheres of influence are likely to be subject to strong pressures from dominant societal actors seeking to bolster their faith for two interrelated reasons. First, states within a religion’s sphere of influence are by definition home to many adherents to that faith. The chance that the adherents’ views will be represented by the dominant societal actors is thus quite high. Even when ruling elites themselves do not necessarily hold strong religious views, and even when the state is formally secular–such as in Turkey or the United States–religiously-motivated opinion is likely to carry significant sway in policymaking. (77)

Second, beyond demographics, the fact that the state is territorially within a religion’s perceived sphere of influence is likely to strengthen religion’s influence on the state. For example, Islamist political movements (78) in Saudi Arabia frequently invoke the fact that the kingdom is central to the Muslim Holy Land when lobbying the state for religiously-driven policy. (79) Similarly, some religious advocates in the United States refer to America as a “Christian country” when advancing their cause. (80)

Given the strength of religious interest groups within the perceived Christian and Muslim spheres of influence, liberal theory would predict that the policies of states within those spheres are likely to promote the dominant religion. To the extent that religiously-motivated actors are able to capture the state, liberal theory would predict some degree of policy convergence amongst states falling within the same religious sphere of influence. (81)

Of course, liberalism also understands that religion is never the only interest influencing state policy, and often not even the dominant one. Indeed, even a theocratic state like Saudi Arabia pursues policies–such as close relations with the United States–that run counter to a sizeable component of religious opinion within the country.

However, many believers think that their faith should be the primary interest motivating the state’s policies. Indeed, this incongruence between the fact that religion is often not the dominant interest motivating a state’s policies while adherents believe that it should be helps to explain the role of non-state religious actors in international affairs. Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, unable to realize their goals through state mechanisms, in essense take matters into their own hands by directly engaging perceived enemies. (82) Because religions are not entirely dependent on states to operate at the international level, liberalism is a useful lens through which to view the relations between Christianity and Islam. Liberalism’s focus on individuals allows it to account for non-state actors like terrorist networks.

While liberalism provides a valuable way to understand the relationship between Christianity and Islam, it is ambivalent toward the nature of their interactions. An observer influenced by realism’s emphasis on structural conflict might predict that the two faiths are predisposed to discord, as realism predicts of nation-states. (83) Conversely, liberalism maintains that the state of anarchy in which nations and religions fred themselves does not inherently bias them toward competition; rather, conflict is a sub-systemic phenomenon. (84) In this manner, liberalism would attribute recent hostilities between Christians and Muslims as well as Muslim and Christian states to incompatibilities between the particular agendas of societal actors. For example, liberal theorists saw nothing systemic about the September 11th attacks or their aftermath. Instead, these events were the consequence of the desires and goals of both a small group of terrorists and also a larger group of individuals who have a radical Islamist agenda, rather than representative of any innate struggle between Islam and Christianity.

2. Spheres of Influence as a Strategy

States utilize spheres of influence as one strategy in the pursuit of power or security. They define, defend, and enlarge their own spheres of influence while attempting to undermine the spheres of other states. In other words, great powers seek to dominate their own geographic regions of the world and also seek to prevent other states from gaining a foothold.

Likewise, many Christians and Muslims think that their faiths dominate and are able to exert a large amount of influence over particular geographic regions. As explained above, these believers’ views tend to mirror those held by realists, as they believe that Christianity and Islam are competitors intentionally and that one faith’s gain is the other’s loss. (85) Thus, adherents to both religions attempt to pressure states within their perceived spheres of influence to adopt policies that advance their faith, and also undertake independent actions to preserve and expand their religion’s sphere of influence (for example, proselytism).

The spheres of influence concept contains both descriptive and predictive power for analyzing the interactions between Islam and Christianity. We should expect, now and in the future, to see both Christians and Muslims acting to define, defend, and enlarge their faiths’ spheres of influence.

III. ISLAM (86)

Islam, which means “submission” in Arabic, (87) …

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