How the Research Is Empirically Examined 101
Europeans were killed in the two world wars. Conversely, not more than
4,000 people were killed in the two European conflicts after 1945.^109
The absence of a major war in Europe in the Cold War period led to its
designation as the long peace period,^110 and it is attributed in the book to
the bipolar system. In international relations research, three key additional
alternative explanations are accepted for the relative quiet that prevailed
in the global and European system in those years: (1) the supporters of
economic liberalism argue that liberal economic order leads to peace. The
theory will have difficulty explaining this phenomenon because the com-
merce between the Soviet Union and the West in that period was very lim-
ited; (2) the supporters of the democratic peace theory argue that democracies
do not fight other democracies and are not peaceful when they confront
authoritarian countries.^111 The theory would find it difficult to explain this
phenomenon because the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe
were not democratic countries in those 45 years; and (3) according to the
idea of obsolescence of war as an institute,^112 the world has undergone Hol-
landization in the last few centuries.^113 Major wars became obsolete in the
First World War, and the Second World War supported that concept. In
1945, it was obvious that a major war had become irrational and mor-
ally unacceptable, like past social institutions, such as dueling and slav-
ery. Therefore, even without the appearance of nuclear weapons, political
leaders in the Cold War period did not seriously encourage war and it
became an anachronism. Therefore, war between modern Western nations
became unacceptable.^114 This is probably the most comprehensive alterna-
tive explanation for the stability of the Cold War, but it is not completely
convincing. The fact that the Second World War was fought sheds great
doubt as to the validity of the theory, inasmuch as if any war could con-
vince the Europeans to waive conventional wars, the First World War and
its many victims would have done it.^115
STABILITY OF INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS
IN UNIPOLAR SYSTEM
For neorealism, unipolarity is the least stable system because any large
concentration of power threatens the other states operating in the system,
makes them form a counterposition to the absolute power of the leading
state, and leads them to take actions for restoring the balance.^116 At the
other end is the hegemonic stability theory, under which unipolar systems
are the most stable because any large concentration of power leads to
peace.^117
The international relations theory of war presents an opinion that opposes
these two views. According to it, unipolar systems are on a continuum.
They will be less stable than bipolar systems but more stable than multi-
polar ones because of the two systemic principles affecting the players in