To receive the full scores (five points), you should (1) post your answer to the topic question with supporting details (four points), and (2) critically engage with other classmates (one point). The scores will be decided based on the quality of your arguments (relevancy, persuasiveness, and creativeness) and comments (relevancy and persuasiveness).
Prompt
- Which theory do you think explains 21st Century world politics better, realism or liberalism?
International
“T
“bis book purports t
o
present a theory o
f international politics. T
he test by
1 w
hich such a theory m
ust be judged is not a priori and abstract but em
pirical
and pragm
atic. T
he theory, in oth
er
w
ords, m
ust be judged not by som
e precon-
ceived abstract principle or concept unrelated to reality, but by its purpose: to
bring order and m
eaning to a m
ass o
f phenom
ena that w
ithout it w
ould rem
ain
disconnected and unintelligible. It m
ust m
eet a dual test, an em
pirical and a log-
ical one: do the facts as they actually are lend them
selves to the interpretation the
theory has put upon them
, and do the conclusions at w
hich the theory arrives fol-
low
w
ith logical necessity from
its prem
ises? In short, is the theory consistent w
ith
the facts and w
ithin itself?
T
he issue this theory raises concerns the nature o
f all politics. T
he history o
f
m
odem
political thought is the story o
f a contest betw
een tw
o schools that diff
er
fundam
entally in their conceptions o
f the nature o
f m
an, society, and politics.
O
ne believes that a rational and m
oral political order, derived from
universally
valid abstract principles, can be -achieved here and now
. It assum
es the essential
goodness and infinite m
alleability o
f hum
an nature, and blam
es the failure of the
social order to m
easure up to the rational standards on lack o
f know
ledge and
understanding, obsolescent social institutions, or the depravity o
f certain isolated
individuals or groups. It trusts in education, reform
, and the sporadic use of force
to rem
edy these defects.
T
he other school believes that the w
orld, im
perfect as it is from
the rational
point o
f view
, is the result o
f forces inherent in hum
an nature. To im
prove the
w
orld one m
ust w
ork w
ith those forces, not against them
. This being inherently a
w
orld o
f opposing interests and o
f conflict am
ong them
, m
oral principles can
never be fully realized but m
ust at best be approxim
ated through the ever tem
–
porary balancing o
f interests and the ever precarious settlem
ent o
f conflicts. This
school, then, sees in a system
o
f checks and balances a universal principle for all
pluralist societies. It appeals to historical precedent rather than to abstract princi-
ples and aim
s at the realization o
f the lesser evil rather than o
f the absolute good.
3
5
4
A
R
ealist Theory of International P
olitics
T
his theoretical concern w
ith hum
an nature as it actually is, and w
ith the
historical processes as they actually take place, has earned for the theory presented
here the nam
e o
f realism
. W
hat are the tenets o
f political realism
? N
o system
atic
exposition o
f the philosophy o
f political r
ealism
can be attem
pted here;
it
w
ill suffice to single out six fundam
ental principles, w
hich have frequently been
m
isunderstood.
SIX PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL REALISM
1. Political realism
believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by
objective law
s that have their roots in hum
an nature. In order to im
prove society
it is first necessary to understand the law
s by w
hich society lives. T
he operation o
f
these law
s being im
pervious to our preferences, m
en w
ill challenge them
only at
the risk o
f failure
.
R
ealism
, believing as it does in the objectivity o
f the law
s o
f politics, m
ust
also believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, how
ever
im
perfectly and one-sidedly, these objective law
s. It believes also, then, in the pos-
sibility o
f distinguishing in politics betw
een truth and opinion-betw
een w
hat is
true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illum
inated by reason,
and w
hat is only a subjective judgm
ent, divorced from
the facts as they are and
inform
ed by prejudice and w
ishful thinking.
H
um
an nature, in w
hich the law
s o
f politics have their roots, has not
changed since the classical philosophies o
f C
hina, India, and G
reece endeavored
to discover these law
s. H
ence, novelty is not necessariiy a virtue in political
theory, nor is old age a defect. T
he fact that a theory o
f politics, if there be such
a theory, has never been heard o
f before tends to create a presum
ption against,
rather than in favor of, its soundness. C
onversely, the fact that a theory o
f poli-
tics w
as developed hundreds or even thousands o
fyears ago-as w
as the theory of
the balance o
f pow
er-does not create a presum
ption that it m
ust be outm
oded
and obsolete. A
theory o
fpolitics m
ust be subjected to the dual test o
freason and
experience. To dism
iss such a theory because it had its flow
ering in centuries past
is to present not a rational argum
ent but a m
odernistic prejudice that takes for
granted the superiority o
f the present over the past. To dispose o
f the revival
o
f
such a theory as a “fashion” or “fad” is tantam
ount to assum
ing that in m
atters
political w
e can have opinions but no truths.
For realism
, theory consists in ascertaining facts and giving them
m
eaning
through reason. It assum
es that the character o
fa foreign policy can be ascertained
only through the exam
ination o
f the political acts perform
ed and o
f the foresee-
able consequences o
f these acts. T
hus w
e can find out w
hat statesm
en have actu-
ally done, and from
the foreseeable consequences o
f their acts w
e can surm
ise
w
hat their objectives m
ight have been.
Y
et exam
ination o
f the facts is not enough. To give m
eaning to the factual
raw
m
aterial o
fforeign policy,
w
e m
ust approach political reality w
ith a kind o
fra-
tional outline, a m
ap that suggests to us the possible m
eanings o
f foreign policy.
S
ix P
rinciples o
f P
olitical R
ealism
In other w
ords, w
e put ourselves in the position o
f a statesm
an w
ho m
ust m
eet a
certain p
roblem
o
f foreign policy under certain circum
stances, and w
e ask our-
selves w
hat the rational alternatives are
from
w
hich a statesm
an m
ay choose w
ho
m
ust m
eet this problem
under these circum
stances (presum
ing alw
ays that he acts
in a rational m
anner), and w
hich o
f these rational alternatives this particular
statesm
an, acting under these circum
stances, is likely to choose. It is the testing o
f
this rational hypothesis against the actual facts and their consequences that gives
theoretical m
eaning to the facts o
f international politics.
2.
T
he m
ain signpost that helps political realism
to find its w
ay through the
landscape o
f international politics is the concept o
f interest defined in term
s o
f
pow
er. T
his concept provides the link betw
een reason trying to understand inter-
national politics and the facts to be understood. It sets politics as an autonom
ous
sphere o
f action and understanding apart from
other spheres, such as econom
ics
(understood in term
s o
f interest defined as w
ealth), ethics, aesthetics, or religion.
W
ithout such a concept a theory o
f politics, international or dom
estic, w
ould be
altogether im
possible, for w
ithout it w
e could not distinguish betw
een political
and nonpolitical facts, nor could w
e bring at least a m
easure o
f system
ic order to
the political sphere.
W
e assum
e that statesm
en think and act in term
s ofinterest defined as pow
er,
and the evidence o
f history bears that assum
ption out. T
hat assum
ption allow
s us
to retrace and anticipate, as it w
ere, the steps a statesm
an-past, present, or future-
has taken or w
ill take on the political scene. W
e look over his shoulder w
hen he
w
rites his dispatches; w
e listen in on his conversations w
ith other statesm
en; w
e
read and anticipate his very thoughts. T
hinking in term
s o
f interest defined as
pow
er, w
e think as he does, and as disinterested observers w
e understand his
thoughts and actions perhaps better than he, the actor on the political scene, does
him
self
.
T
he concept
o
f interest defined as pow
er im
poses intellectual discipline
upon the observer, infuses rational order into the subject m
atter o
f politics, and
thus m
akes the theoretical understanding o
f politics possible. O
n the side o
f the
actor, it provides for rational discipline in action and creates that astounding con-
tinuity in foreign policy w
hich m
akes A
m
erican, B
ritish, or R
ussian foreign policy
appear as in intelligible, rational continuum
, by and large consistent w
ithin itself,
regardless o
f the different m
otives, preferences, and intellectual and m
oral quali-
ties o
f successive statesm
en. A
realist theory o
f international politics, then, w
ill
guard against tw
o popular fallacies: the concern w
ith m
otives and the concern
w
ith ideological preferenc
es.
To search for the clue to foreign policy exclusively in the m
otives of states
–
m
en is both futile and deceptive. It is futile because m
otives are the m
ost illusive
o
f psychological data, distorted as they are, frequently beyond recognition, by the
interests and em
otions o
f actor and observer alike. D
o we really
know
w
hat our
ow
n m
otives are? A
nd w
hat do w
e know
o
f the m
otives of others?
Y
et even if w
e had access to the real m
otives o
f statesm
en, that know
ledge
w
ould help us little in understanding foreign policies and m
ight w
ell lead us
astray. It is true that the know
ledge o
f the statesm
an’s m
otives m
ay give us one
7
6
A
R
ealist T
heory of International P
olitics
am
ong m
any clues as to w
hat the direction o
f his foreign policy m
ight be. It can-
not give us, how
ever, the one clue by w
hich to predict his foreign policies. H
istory
show
s no exact and necessary correlation betw
een the quality
o
f m
otives and the
quality o
f foreign policy. T
his is true in both m
oral and political term
s.
W
e cannot conclude from
the good intentions o
f a statesm
an that his foreign
policies w
ill be either m
orally praisew
orthy or politically successful. Judging his
m
otives, w
e can say that he w
ill not intentionally pursue policies that are m
orally
w
rong, but w
e can say nothing about the probability o
f their success. Ifw
e w
ant to
know
the m
oral and political qualities o
f his actions, w
e m
ust know
them
, not his
m
otives. H
ow
often have statesm
en been m
otivated by the desire to im
prove the
w
orld and ended by m
aking it w
orse? A
nd how
often have they sought one goal,
and ended by achieving som
ething they neither expected nor desired?
N
eville C
ham
berlain’s politics of appeasem
ent w
ere, as far as w
e can judge,
inspired by good m
otives; he w
as probably less m
otivated by considerations o
f
personal pow
er than w
ere m
any other B
ritish prim
e m
inisters, and he sought to
preserve peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned. Y
et his policies helped
to m
ake the Second W
orld W
ar inevitable and to bring untold m
iseries to m
illions
of people. Sir W
inston C
hurchill’s m
otives, on the other hand, w
ere m
uch less
universal in scope and m
uch m
ore narrow
ly directed tow
ard personal and nation
al
pow
er, yet the foreign policies that sprang from
these inferior m
otives w
ere cer-
tainly superior in m
oral and political quality to those pursued by his predecessor.
Judged by his m
otives, R
obespierre w
as one o
f the m
ost virtuous m
en w
ho ever
lived. Y
et it w
as the utopian radical
ism
o
fthat very virtue that m
ade him
kill those
less virtuous than him
self, brought him
to the scaffold, and destroyed the revolu-
tion
o
f w
hich he w
as a lead
er.
G
ood m
otives give assurance against deliberately bad policies; they do not
guarantee the m
oral goodness and political success o
f the policies they inspire.
W
hat is im
portant to !m
ow
, if one w
ants to understand foreign policy, is not pri-
m
arily the m
otives o
f a statesm
an but his intellectual ability to com
prehend the
essentials o
f foreign policy, as w
ell as his political ability to translate w
hat he has
com
prehended into successful political action. It follow
s that, w
hile ethics in the
abstract judges the m
oral qualities o
f m
otives, political theory m
ust judge the
political qualities of intellect, w
ill, and action.
A
realist theory of international politics w
ill also avoid the other popular fal-
lacy o
f equating the foreign policies of a statesm
an w
ith his philosophic or political
sym
pathies, and o
f deducing the form
er from
the latter. Statesm
en, especially under
contem
porary conditions, m
ay w
ell m
ake a habit ofpresenting their foreign policies
in term
s o
f their philosophic and political sym
pathies in order to gain popular sup-
port for them
. Y
et they w
ill distinguish w
ith L
incoln betw
een their “official duty,”
w
hich is to think and act in term
s o
f the national interest, and their ”personal w
ish,”
w
hich is to see their ow
n m
oral values and political principles realized throughout
the w
orld. Political realism
does not require, nor does it condone, indifference to
political ideals and m
oral principles, but it requires indeed a sharp distinction
betw
een the desirable and the possible-betw
een w
hat is desirable everyw
here and at
all tim
es and w
hat is possible under the concrete circum
stances o
f tim
e and place.
Six P
rinciples o
f P
olitical R
ealism
It stands to reason that not all foreign policies have alw
ays follow
ed so rational,
objective, and unem
otional a course. T
he contingent elem
ents o
fpersonality, prej-
udice, and subjective preference, and o
fall the w
ealm
esses o
fintellect and w
ill that
flesh is heir to, are bound to deflect foreign policies from
their rational course.
E
specially w
here foreign policy is conducted under the conditions o
f dem
ocratic
control, the need to m
arshal popular em
otions to the support of foreign policy
cannot fail to im
pair the rationality o
f foreign policy itself. Y
et a the.0ry o
f foreign
policy that aim
s at rationality m
ust for the tim
e being, as it w
ere, abstract from
these irrational elem
ents and seek to paint a picture o
fforeign policy that presents
the rational essence to be found in experience;w
ithout the contingent deviations
from
rationality that are also found in experience
.
D
eviations from
rationality that are not the result of the personal w
him
or the
personal psychopathology o
f the policym
aker m
ay appear contingent only from
the
vantage point ofrationality but m
ay them
selves be elem
ents in a coherent system
of
irrationality. The possibility o
f constructing, as it w
ere, a counter-theory of irrational
politics is w
orth exploring
.
W
hen one reflects upon the developm
ent of A
m
erican thinking on foreign
policy, one is struck by the persistence o
f m
istaken attitudes that have survived-
under w
hatever guises-both intellectual argum
ent and political experience. O
nce
that w
onder, in true A
ristotelian fashion, has been transform
ed into the quest for
rational
understanding,
the
quest yields
a conclusion
both com
forting and
disturbing: w
e are here in the presence o
f intellectual defects shared by all o
f us
in different w
ays and degrees. T
ogether they provide the outline o
f a kind o
f
pathology o
f international politics. W
hen the hum
an m
ind approaches reality
w
ith the purpose o
f taking action, o
f w
hich the political encounter is one o
f the
outstanding instances, it is
often led astray by any of four com
m
on m
ental
phenom
ena: residues o
f form
erly adequate m
odes o
fthought and action now
ren-
dered obsolete by a new
social reality; dem
onological interpretations of reality
that substitute a fictitious reality-peopled by evil persons rather than seem
ingly
intractable issues-for the actual one; refusal to com
e to term
s w
ith a threatening
state o
f affairs by denying it through illusory verbalization; or reliance upon the
infinite m
alleability o
f a seem
ingly obstreperous reality
.
M
an responds to social situations w
ith repetitive patterns. T
he sam
e situa-
tion, recognized in its identity w
ith previous situations, evokes the sam
e respons
e.
T
he m
ind, as it w
ere, holds in readiness a num
ber o
f patterns appropriate for dif-
ferent situations; it then requires only the identification o
f a particular case to
apply to it the preform
ed pattern appropriate to it. T
hus the hum
an m
ind follow
s
the principle o
f econom
y o
f effort, obviating an exam
ination de novo of each in-
dividual situation and the pattern o
f thought and action appropriate to it. Y
et
w
hen m
atters are subject to dynam
ic change, traditional patterns are no longer
appropriate; they m
ust be replaced by new
ones reflecting such change. O
therw
ise
a gap w
ill open betw
een traditional patterns and new
realities, and thought and
action w
ill be m
isguided.
O
n the international plane it is no exaggeration to say that the very structure
ofinternational relations-as reflected in political institutions, diplom
atic procedures,
9
8
A
R
ealist Theory of International P
olitics
and legal arrangem
ents-has tended to becom
e at variance w
ith, and in large m
easure
irrelevant to, the reality o
f international politics. W
hile the form
er assum
es the
“sovereign equality” of all nations, the latter is dom
inated by an extrem
e inequality
o
fnations, tw
o o
fw
hich are called superpow
ers because they hold in their hands the
unprecedented pow
er o
f total destruction, and m
any o
f w
hich are called “m
in-
istates” because their pow
er is m
inuscule even com
pared w
ith that o
f the traditional
nation-states. It is this contrast and incom
patibility betw
een the reality o
f interna-
tional politics and the concepts, institutions, and procedures designed to m
ake
intelligible and control the form
er that have caused, at least below
the great-
p
ow
er
level, the unm
anageability o
f international relations, w
hich borders on anarchy.
International terrorism
and the different governm
ent reactions to it, the involve-
m
ent o
f foreign governm
ents in the Lebanese civil w
ar, the m
ilitary oper~tions o
f
the U
nited States in Southeast A
sia, and the m
ilitary intervention o
f the Soviet
U
nion in E
astern E
urope cannot be explained or justified by reference to traditional
concepts, institutions, and procedures.
A
ll these situations have one characteristic in com
m
on. T
he m
odem
fact
o
f interdependence requires a political order that takes that fact into account
,
w
hile in reality the legal and institutional superstructure, harking back to the
nineteenth century, assum
es the existence o
f a m
ultiplicity o
f self-sufficient,
im
penetrable, sovereign nation-states. T
hese residues o
f an obsolescent legal and
institutional order not only stand in the w
ay o
f a rational transform
ation o
f in-
ternational relations in light o
f the inequality
o
f pow
er and the interdependence
o
f interests, but they also render precarious, if not im
possible, m
ore rational
policies w
ithin the defective fram
ew
ork o
f such a system
.
It is a characteristic o
f prim
itive thinking to personalize social problem
s.
T
hat tendency is particularly strong w
hen the problem
appears not to be suscep-
tible to rational understanding and successful m
anipulation. W
hen a particular
person or group o
f persons is identified w
ith the recalcitrant difficulty, that m
ay
seem
to render the problem
both intellectually accessible and susceptible to solu-
tion. T
hus belief in Satan as the source o
f evil m
akes us “understand” the nature
o
f evil by focusing the search for its origin and control upon a particular person
w
hose
physical
existence
w
e
assum
e.
T
he
com
plexity
o
f political
conflict
precludes such sim
ple solutions. N
atural catastrophes w
ill not be prevented by
burning w
itches; the threat o
f a pow
erful G
erm
any to establish hegem
ony over
E
urope w
ill not be averted by getting rid o
f a succession o
f G
erm
an leaders. B
ut
by identifying the issue w
ith certain persons over w
hom
w
e have-or hope to
have-control w
e reduce the problem
, both intellectually and pragm
atically, to
m
anageable proportions. O
nce w
e have identified certain individuals and groups
ofindividuals as the source o
f evil, w
e appear to have understood the causal nexus
that leads from
the individuals to the social problem
; that apparent understand-
ing suggests the apparent solution: elim
inate the individuals “responsible” for it,
and you have solved the problem
.
Superstition still holds sw
ay over our relations w
ithin society. T
he dem
ono-
logical pattern o
f thought and action has now
been transferred to other fields o
f
hum
an action closed to the kind o
f rational enquiry and action that have driven
Six P
rinciples o
f P
olitical R
ealism
superstition from
our relations w
ith nature. A
s W
illiam
G
raham
Sum
ner p~t it, “T
he
am
ount o
f superstition is not m
uch changed, but it now
attaches to poht1cs, not to
religion.”
1 T
he num
erous failure
s o
f the U
nited States to recognize and respond to
the polycentric nature o
f C
om
m
unism
is a prim
e exam
ple of this defect. T
he corol-
lary o
f this indiscrim
inate opposition to C
om
m
unism
is the indiscrim
inate support
of governm
ents
and
m
ovem
ents
that profess
and
practice
anti-C
om
m
unism
.
A
m
erican policies in A
sia and L
atin A
m
erica have derived from
this sim
plistic
position. T
he V
ietnam
W
ar and our inability to com
e to term
s w
ith m
ain!and C
hina
find here their rationale. So do the theo1y and practice o
f countennsurgency,
including large-scale assassinations under the Phoenix program
in V
ietnam
and the
actual
or attem
pted assassinations
of individual statesm
en. Signs
of a sim
ilar
approach have been evident m
ore recently in C
entral A
m
erica.
T
he dem
onological approach to foreign policy strengthens another patho-
logical tendency, w
hich is the refusal to acknow
ledge and cope effectively w
ith a
threatening reality. T
he dem
onological approach has shifted our attention and
concern tow
ard the adherents o
f C
om
m
unism
-individuals at hom
e and abroad,
political m
ovem
ents, foreign governm
ents-and aw
ay from
the real threat: the
pow
er o
f states, C
om
m
unist or not. M
cC
arthyism
not only provided the m
ost
pervasive A
m
erican exam
ple o
f the dem
onological approach but w
as also one o
f
the m
ost extrem
e exam
ples o
f this kind o
f m
isjudgm
ent: it substituted the largely
illusory threat o
f dom
estic subversion for the real threat of R
ussian pow
er.
Finally, it is part o
f this approach to politics to believe that no problem
s-
how
ever hopeless they m
ay appear-are really insoluble, given w
ell-m
eaning, w
ell-
financed, and com
petent efforts. I have tried elsew
here to lay bare the intellectual
and historical roots o
f this belief;2 here I lim
it m
yself to pointing out its persist-
ent strength despite m
uch experience to the contrary, such as the V
ietnam
W
ar
and the general decline o
f A
m
erican pow
er. This preference for econom
ic solu-
tions to political and m
ilitary problem
s is pow
erfully reinforced by the interest
s
o
f potential recipients o
f econom
ic support, w
ho prefer the obviously profitable
transfer o
f econom
ic advantages to painful and risky diplom
atic bargaining.
T
he difference betw
een international politics as it actually is and a rational
theory derived from
it is like the difference betw
een a photograph and a painted
portrait. T
he photograph show
s everything that can be seen by the naked eye; the
painted portrait does not show
everything that can be seen by the naked eye, but
it show
s, or at least seeks to show
, one thing that the naked eye cannot see: the
hum
an essence o
f the person portrayed.
Political realism
contains not only a theoretical but also a norm
ative elem
ent.
It know
s that political reality is replete w
ith contingencies and system
ic irra-
tionalities, and points to the typical influences they exert upon foreign policy. Y
et
it shares w
ith all social theory the need, for the sake o
f theoretical understanding,
to stress the rational elem
ents o
f political reality; for it is these rational elem
ents
‘”M
ores o
f the Present and Future,” in l¼
r and O
ther Essays (N
ew
H
aven, C
T
: Y
ale U
niversity Press,
1911), p. 159.
2Scientific M
an ¼
rsus Power Politics (C
hicago:
U
niversity o
f C
hicago Press, 1946).
1
0
A
R
ealist Theory of International P
olitics
that m
ake reality intelligible for theory. Political realism
presents the theoretical
construct o
f a rational
foreign
policy
that experience
can
never com
pletely
achieve.
A
t the sam
e tim
e political realism
considers a rational foreign policy to be
good foreign policy; for only a rational foreign policy m
inim
izes risks and m
axi-
m
izes benefits and, hence, com
plies w
ith both the m
oral precept o
fprudence and
the political requirem
ent o
f success. Political realism
w
ants the photographic pic-
ture o
f the political w
orld to resem
ble as m
uch as possible its painted portrait.
A
w
are o
f the inevitable gap betw
een good-that is, rational-foreign policy and for-
eign policy as it actually is, political r
ealism
m
aintains not only that theory m
ust
focus upon the rational elem
ents o
f political reality but also that foreign policy
ought to be rational in view
o
f its ow
n m
oral and practical purposes.
H
ence, it is no argum
ent against the theory here presented that actual for-
eign policy does not or cannot live up to it. T
hat argum
ent m
isunderstands the
intention o
f this book, w
hich is to present not an indiscrim
inate description o
f
political reality but a rational theory o
f international politics. Far from
being in-
validated by the fact that, for instance, a perfect balance o
f pow
er policy w
ill
scarcely be found in reality, it assum
es that reality, being deficient in this respect,
m
ust be understood and evaluated as an approxim
ation to an ideal system
o
fbalance
o
f pow
er.
3. R
ealism
assum
es that its key concept o
f interest defined as pow
er is an
objective category that is universally valid, but it does not endow
that concept w
ith
a m
eaning that is fixed once and for all. T
he idea o
finterest is indeed o
fthe essence
o
f politics and is unaffected by the circum
stances o
f tim
e and place. T
hucydides’
statem
ent, born o
f the experiences o
f ancient G
reece, that “identity o
f interests is
the surest o
f bonds w
hether betw
een states or individuals” w
as taken up in the
nineteenth century by L
ord Salisbury’s rem
ark that “the only bond o
f union that
endures” am
ong nations is “the absence o
fall clashing interests.” It w
as erected into
a general principle
o
f governm
ent by G
eorge W
ashington
:
A
sm
all lm
ow
ledge of hum
an nature w
ill convince us, that, w
ith far the great-
est part o
f m
ankind, interest is the governing principle; and that alm
ost every
m
an is m
ore or less, under its influence. M
otives of public virtue m
ay for a
tim
e, or in particular instances, actuate m
en to the observance o
f a conduct
purely disinterested; but they are not of them
selves sufficient to produce pre-
serving conform
ity to the refined dictates and obligations of social duty. F
ew
m
en are capable of m
aking a continual sacrifice of all view
s o
f private interest,
or advantage, to the com
m
on good. It is vain to exclaim
against the depravity
o
f hum
an nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience o
f every age
and nation has proved it and w
e m
ust in a great m
easure, change the constitu-
tion o
f m
an, before w
e can m
ake it otherw
ise. N
o institution, not built on the
presum
ptive truth o
f these m
axim
s can succeed. 3
3The W
ritings o
fGeorge W
ashington, edited by John C
. Fitzpatrick (\V
ashington, D
C
: U
nited States
Printing O
ffice, 1931-44), V
ol. X
, p. 363.
Six P
rinciples o
f P
olitical R
ealism
11
It w
as echoed and enlarged upon in the tw
entieth century by M
ax W
eber’s
observation:
Interests (m
aterial and ideal), not ideas, dom
inate directly the actions of
m
en.
Y
et the “im
ages of the w
orld” created by these ideas have very often served as
sw
itches determ
ining the tracks on w
hich the dynam
ism
o
f interests kept
actions m
oving. 4
Y
et the kind o
f interest determ
ining political action in a particular period o
f
history depends upon the political and cultural context w
ithin w
hich foreign pol-
icy is form
ulated. T
he goals that m
ight be pursued by nations in their foreign
policy can run the w
hole gam
ut o
f objectives any nation has ever pursued or
m
ight possibly pursue.
T
he sam
e observations apply to the concept o
f pow
er. Its content and the
m
anner o
f its use are determ
ined by the political and cultural environm
ent. Pow
er
m
ay com
prise anything that establishes and m
aintains the control o
fm
an over m
an.
T
hus pow
er covers all social relationships that serve that end, from
physical vio-
lence to the m
ost subtle psychological ties by w
hich one m
ind controls another.
Pow
er covers the dom
ination o
fm
an by m
an, both w
hen it is disciplined by m
oral
ends and controlled by constitutional safeguards, as in W
estern dem
ocracies, and
w
hen it is that untam
ed and barbaric force that finds its law
s in nothing but its
ow
n strength and its sole justification in its aggrandizem
ent.
Political realism
does not assum
e that the contem
porary conditions under
w
hich foreign policy operates, w
ith their extrem
e instability and the ever-present
threat o
f large-scale violence, cannot be changed. T
he balance o
f pow
er, for in-
stance, is indeed a perennial elem
ent o
f all pluralistic societies, as the authors o
f
The Federalist papers w
ell knew
; yet it is capable o
f operating, as it does in the
U
nited States, under the conditions o
f relative stability and peaceful conflict. If
the factors that have given rise to these conditions can be duplicated on the in-
ternational scene, sim
ilar conditions o
f stability and peace w
ill then prevail there,
as they have over long stretches o
f history am
ong certain nations.
W
hat is true o
f the general character o
f international relations is also true o
f
the nation-state as the ultim
ate point o
f reference o
f contem
porary foreign policy.
W
hile the realist indeed believes that interest is the perennial standard by w
hich po-
litical action m
ust be judged and directed, the contem
porary connection betw
een
interest and the nation-state is a product o
f history and is therefore bound to dis-
appear in the course o
f history. N
othing in the realist position m
ilitates against the
assum
ption that the present division o
f the political w
orld into nation-states w
ill be
replaced by larger units o
f a quite different character, m
ore in keeping w
ith the tech-
nical potentialities and the m
oral requirem
ents o
f the contem
porary w
orld.
T
he realist parts com
pany w
ith other schools o
f thought before
the
all-
im
portant question o
fhow
the contem
porary w
orld is to be transform
ed. T
he realist
is persuaded that this transform
ation can be achieved only through the w
orkm
anlike
4M
arianne W
eber, M
ax W
eber (T
iibingen: J.C
.B
. M
ohr, 1926), pp. 347-48. See also M
ax W
eber,
G
esam
m
elte Aufsiitze zttr Religionssoziologie (T
iibingen: J.C
.B
. M
ohr, 1920), p. 252.
12
A
R
ealist Theory of International P
olitics
m
anipul_ation o
fthe perennial forces that have shaped the past as they w
ill the future.
T
he ~eahst cat:1:ot be p~rsuaded that w
e can bring about that transform
ation by con-
frontm
g a political reality that has its ow
n law
s w
ith an abstract ideal that refuses to
take those law
s into account.
4. Political realism
is aw
are o
f the m
oral significance o
f political action. It is
also aw
are o
f the ineluctable tension betw
een the m
oral com
m
and and the re-
qui:em
ents o
f suc_cessful political action. A
nd it is unw
illing to gloss over and
obhtera~e ~
at tension and thus to obfuscate both the m
oral and the political issues
by m
aking 1t appear as though the stark facts o
f politics w
ere m
orally m
ore satis-
fying than they actually are, and the m
oral law
less exacting that it actually is.
R
ealism
m
aintains that universal m
oral principles cannot be applied to the
actions o
f states in their abstract universal form
ulation but that they m
ust be fil-
tered through the concrete circum
stances o
f tim
e and place. T
he individual m
ay
say for him
self, “Fiat justitia, pereat m
undus (Let justice be done, even if the w
orld
perish),” but the state has no right to say so in the nam
e o
f those w
ho are in its
care. B
oth individual and state m
ust judge political action by universal m
oral prin-
ciples, such as that o
f liberty. Y
et w
hile the individual has a m
oral right to sacri-
fice him
self in defense o
f such a m
oral principle, the state has no right to let its
m
oral disapprobation o
f the infringem
ent o
f liberty get in the w
ay o
f successful
political action, itself inspired by the m
oral principle o
f national survival. T
here
can be no political m
orality w
ithout prudence, that is, w
ithout consideration o
f
the political consequences o
f seem
ingly m
oral action. R
ealism
, then, considers
prudence-the w
eighing o
f the consequences o
f alternative political actions-to be
the suprem
e virtue in politics. E
thics in the abstract judges action by its con-
form
ity w
ith the m
oral law
; political ethics judges actton by its political conse-
quences. C
lassical and m
edieval philosophy knew
this, and so did L
incoln w
hen
he said:
I do the very best I know
how
, the very best I can, and I m
ean to keep doing
so until the end. Ifthe end brings m
e out all right, w
hat is said against m
e
w
on’t am
ount to anything. Ifthe end brings m
e out w
rong, ten angels sw
ear-
ing I w
as right w
ould m
ake no difference.
5. Political realism
refuses to identify the m
oral aspirations o
f a particular
nation w
ith the m
oral law
s that govern the universe. A
s it distinguishes betw
een
truth and opinion, so it distinguishes betw
een truth and idolatry. A
ll nations are
tem
pted-and few
have been able to resist the tem
ptation for long-to clothe their
ow
n particular aspirations and actions in the m
oral purposes o
f the universe. To
know
that nations are subject to the m
oral law
is one thing, w
hile to pretend to
know
w
ith certainty w
hat is good and evil in the relations am
ong nations is quite
another. T
here is a w
orld o
f difference betw
een the belief that all nations stand
under the judg
m
ent o
f G
od, inscrutable to the hum
an m
ind, and the blasphe-
m
ous conviction that G
od is alw
ays on one’s side and that w
hat one w
ills oneself
cannot fail to be w
illed by G
od also.
T
he lighthearted equation betw
een a particular nationalism
and the coun-
sels o
f Providence is m
orally indefensible, for it is that very sin o
f pride against
Six P
rinciples o
f P
olitical R
ealism
1
3
w
hich the G
reek tragedians and the biblical prophets have w
arned rulers and
ruled. T
hat equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the
distortion in judgm
ent that, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations
and civilizations-in the nam
e o
f m
oral principle, ideal, or G
od him
self
O
n the other hand, it is exactly the concept o
f interest defined in term
s o
f
pow
er that saves us from
both that m
oral excess and that political folly. For if
w
e
look at all nations, our ow
n included, as political entities pursuing their respective
interests defined in term
s o
f pow
er, w
e are able to do justice to all o
f them
. A
nd
w
e are able to do justice to all o
f them
in a dual sense: w
e are able to judge other
nations as w
e judge our ow
n and, having judged them
in this fashion, w
e are then
capable o
f pursuing policies that respect the interests o
f other nations w
hile pro-
tecting and prom
oting those o
f our ow
n. M
oderation in policy cannot fail to
reflect the m
oderation o
f m
oral judgm
ent.
6. T
he difference, then, betw
een political realism
and other schools o
f
thought is real, and it is profound. H
ow
ever m
uch o
f the theory o
f political real-
ism
m
ay have been m
isunderstood and m
isinterpreted, there is no gainsaying its
distinctive intellectual and m
oral attitude to m
atters political.
Intellectually, the political realist m
aintains the autonom
y o
f the political
sphere, as the econom
ist, the law
yer, the m
oralist m
aintain theirs. H
e thinks in term
s
o
f interest defined as pow
er, as the econom
ist thinks in term
s of interest defined as
w
ealth; the law
yer, of the conform
ity o
f action w
ith legal rules; the m
oralist, o
f the
conform
ity of action w
ith m
oral principles. T
he econom
ist asks: “
H
ow
does this pol-
icy affect the w
ealth ofsociety, or a segm
ent ofit?” T
he law
yer asks: “Is this policy in
accord w
ith the rules oflaw
?” T
he m
oralist asks: “Is this policy in accord w
ith m
oral
principles?” A
nd the political realist asks: “H
ow
does this policy affect the pow
er of
the nation?” (O
r o
f the federal governm
ent, of C
ongress, of the party, o
fagriculture,
as the case m
ay be.)
T
he political realist is not unaw
are o
fthe existence and the relevance ofstan-
dards o
f thought other than political ones. A
s political realist he cannot but sub-
ordinate these other standards to those o
f politics. A
nd he parts com
pany w
ith
other schools w
hen they im
pose standards of thought appropriate to other spheres
upon the political spheres. It is here that political realism
takes issue w
ith the
“legalistic-m
oralistic approach” to international politics. T
hat this issue is not, as
has been contended, a m
ere figm
ent o
f the im
agination but goes to the very core
o
f the controversy can be show
n from
m
any historical exam
ples. T
hree w
ill suf-
fice to m
ake the point. 5
In 1939 the Soviet U
nion attacked Finland. T
his action confronted France
and G
reat B
ritain w
ith tw
o issues, one legal, the other political. D
id that action vi-
olate the C
ovenant o
f the League o
f N
ations, and, ifit did, w
hat counterm
easures
5See the other exam
ples discussed in H
ans J. M
orgenthau, ”A
nother ‘G
reat D
ebate’: T
he N
ational
Interest o
f the U
nited States,” The Am
erican Political Science Review
, V
ol. X
LV
I (D
ecem
ber 1952),
pp. 979 ff. See also H
ans J. M
orgenthau, Politics in the 20th Century, V
oL 1, The D_edine ofpem
ocratic
Politics (C
hicago: U
niversity o
f C
hicago Press, 1962), pp. 79 ff; and abndged ed1t1on (C
hicago:
U
niversity o
f C
hicago Press, 1971), pp. 204 ff.
1
4
A
R
ealist T
heory of International P
olitics
should France and
G
reat B
ritain take? T
he legal question could easily be answ
ered
in the affirm
ative, for obviously the Soviet U
nion had done w
hat w
as prohibited
by the C
ovenant. T
he answ
er to the political question depends, first, upon the
m
anner in w
hich the R
ussian action affected the interests o
f France and G
reat
B
ritain; second, upon the existing distribution o
fpow
er betw
een France and G
reat
B
ritain, on the one hand, and the Soviet U
nion and other potentially hostile na-
tions, especially G
erm
any, on the other; and, third, upon the influence that the
counterm
easures w
ere likely to have upon the interests o
fFrance and G
reat B
ritain
and the future distribution o
f pow
er. France and G
reat B
ritain, as the leading
m
em
bers o
f the L
eague o
f N
ations, saw
to it that the Soviet U
nion w
as expelled
from
the L
eague, and they w
ere prevented from
joining Finland in the w
ar against
the Soviet U
nion only by Sw
eden’s refusal to allow
their troops to pass through
Sw
edish territory on their w
ay to Finland. Ifthis refusal by Sw
eden had not saved
them
, France and G
reat B
ritain w
ould shortly have found them
selves at w
ar w
ith
the Soviet U
nion and
G
erm
any at the sam
e tim
e.
T
he policy o
f France and G
reat B
ritain w
as a classic exam
ple o
f legalism
in
that they allow
ed the answ
er to the legal question, legitim
ate w
ithin its sphere, to
determ
ine their political actions. Instead o
fasking both questions, that oflaw
and
that o
f pow
er, they asked only the question o
f law
; and the answ
er they received
could have no bearing on the issue that their very existence m
ight have depended
upon. T
he second exam
ple illustrates the “m
oralistic approach” to international
politics. It concerns the international status o
f the C
om
m
unist governm
ent o
f
C
hina. T
he rise o
f that governm
ent confronted the W
estern w
orld w
ith tw
o
issues, one m
oral, the other political. W
ere the nature and policies o
f that gov-
ernm
ent in accord w
ith the m
oral principles o
f the W
estern w
orld? S
hould the
W
estern w
orld deal w
ith such a governm
ent? T
he answ
er to the first question
could not fail to be in the negative. Y
et it did not follow
w
ith necessity that the
answ
er to the second question should also be in the negative. T
he standard o
f
thought applied to the first-the m
oral-question w
as sim
ply to test the nature
and the policies o
f the C
om
m
unist governm
ent o
f C
hina by the principles o
f
W
estern m
orality. O
n
the other hand, the second-the political-question had to
be subjected to the com
plicated test o
fthe interests involved and the pow
er avail-
able on either side, and o
f the bearing o
f one or the other course o
f action upon
these interests and pow
er. T
he application o
f this test could w
ell have led to the
conclusion that it w
ould be w
iser not to deal w
ith the C
om
m
unist governm
ent
o
f C
hina. To
arrive at this conclusion by neglecting this test altogether and
answ
ering the political question in term
s o
f the m
oral issue w
as indeed a classic
exam
ple o
f the “m
oralistic approach” to international politics.
T
he third case illustrates strikingly the contrast betw
een realism
and the
legalistic-m
oralistic approach to foreign policy. G
reat B
ritain, as one o
f the guar-
antors o
fthe neutrality o
fB
elgium
, w
ent to w
ar w
ith G
erm
any in A
ugust 1914 be-
cause G
erm
any had violated the neutrality o
fB
elgium
. T
he B
ritish action could be
justified in either realistic or in legalistic-m
oralistic term
s. T
hat is to say, one could
argue realistically that for centuries it had been axiom
atic for B
ritish foreign policy
Six P
rinciples o
f P
olitical R
ealism
15
to prevent the control o
f the L
ow
C
ountries by a hostile pow
er. It w
as then not
so
m
uch the violation o
fB
elgium
‘s neutrality per se as the hostile intentions o
fthe vi-
olator that provided the rationale for B
ritish intervention. If the violator had been
another nation but G
erm
any, G
reat B
ritain m
ight w
ell have refrained from
inter-
vening. T
his is the position taken by Sir E
dw
ard G
rey, B
ritish foreign secretary
during that period. U
ndersecretary for Foreign A
ffairs H
ardinge rem
arked to him
in 1908: “IfFrance violated B
elgian neutrality in a w
ar against G
erm
any, it is doubt-
ful w
hether E
ngland or R
ussia w
ould m
ove a finger to m
aintain B
elgian neutrality,
w
hile if the neutrality o
f B
elgium
w
as violated by G
erm
any, it is probable that the
converse w
ould be the case.” W
hereupon Sir E
dw
ard G
rey replied: “T
his is to the
point.” Y
et one could also take the legalistic and m
oralistic position that the viola-
tion o
f B
elgium
‘s neutrality per se, because o
f its legal and m
oral defects and
regardless o
fthe interests at stake and o
fthe identity o
fthe violator, justified B
ritish
and, for that m
atter, A
m
erican intervention. T
his w
as the position that T
heodore
R
oosevelt took in his letter to Sir E
dw
ard G
rey o
fJanuary 22, 1915:
To m
e the crux of the situation has been B
elgium
. If E
ngland or France had
acted tow
ard B
elgium
as G
erm
any has acted I should have opposed them
, ex-
actly as I now
oppose G
erm
any. I have em
phatically approved your action as a
m
odel for w
hat should be done by those w
ho believe that treaties should be
observed in good faith and that there is such a thing as international m
orality.
I take this position as an A
m
erican w
ho is no m
ore an E
nglishm
an than he is
a G
erm
an, w
ho endeavors loyally to serve the interests of his ow
n country, but
w
ho also endeavors to do w
hat he can for justice and decency as regards
m
ankind at large, and w
ho therefore feels obliged to judge all other nations by
their conduct on any given occasion.
T
his realist defense o
f the autonom
y o
f the political sphere against its sub-
version by other m
odes o
fthought does not im
ply disregard for the existence and
im
portance o
f these other m
odes o
f thought. It rather im
plies that each should
be assigned its proper sphere and function. Political realism
is based upon a plu-
ralistic conception o
f hum
an nature. R
eal m
an is a com
posite o
f “econom
ic
m
an,” “political m
an,” “m
oral m
an,” “religious m
an,” etc. A
m
an w
ho w
as noth-
ing but “political m
an” w
ould be a beast, for he w
ould be com
pletely lacking in
m
oral restraints. A
m
an w
ho w
as nothing but “m
oral m
an” w
ould be a fool, for
he w
ould be com
pletely lacking in prudence. A
m
an w
ho
w
as
nothing but
“religious m
an” w
ould be a saint, for he w
ould be com
pletely lacking in w
orldly
desires. Recognizing that these different facets o
f hum
an nature exist, political real-
ism
also recognizes that in order to understand one o
f them
one has to deal w
ith
it on its ow
n term
s. T
hat is to say, if I w
ant to understand “religious m
an,” I m
ust
for the tim
e being abstract from
the other aspects o
f hum
an nature and deal w
ith
its religious aspect as if it w
ere the only one. Furtherm
ore, I m
ust apply to the reli-
gious sphere the standards o
f thought appropriate to it, alw
ays rem
aining aw
are o
f
the existence o
fother standards and their actual influence upon the religious qual-
ities o
fm
an. W
hat is true o
f this facet o
fhum
an nature is true o
f all the others. N
o
1 6
A
R
ealist Theory of International P
olitics
m
odern econom
ist, for instance, w
ould conceive o
f his science and its relations to
other sciences o
f m
an in any other w
ay. It is exactly through such a process o
f
em
ancipation from
other standards o
f thought, and the developm
ent o
f one ap-
propriate to its subject m
atter, that econom
ics has developed as an autonom
ous
theory o
f the .econom
ic activities of m
an. To contribute to a sim
ilar developm
ent
in the field o
fpolitics is indeed the purpose o
f political realism
.
It is in the nature o
f things that a theory o
f politics that is based upon such
principles w
ill not m
eet w
ith unanim
ous approval-nor does, for that m
atter, such
a foreign policy. For theory and policy alike run counter to tw
o trends in our cul-
ture that are not able to reconcile them
selves to the assum
ptions and results o
f a
rational, objective theory o
f politics. O
ne o
f these trends disparages the role o
f
pow
er in society on grounds that stem
from
the experience and philosophy of the
nineteenth century; w
e shall address ourselves to this tendency later in greater
detail. 6 T
he other trend, opposed to the realist theory and practice o
fpolitics, stem
s
from
the very relationship that exists, and m
ust exist, betw
een the hum
an m
ind
and the political sphere. For reasons that w
e shall discuss later,7 the hum
an m
ind
in its day-by-day operations cannot bear to look the truth of politics straight in the
face. It m
ust disguise, distort, belittle, and em
bellish the truth-the m
ore so, the
m
ore the individual is actively involved in the processes o
f politics, and particu-
larly in those o
f international politics. For only by deceiving him
self about the
nature o
f politics and the role he plays on the political scene is m
an able to live
contentedly as a political anim
al w
ith him
self and his fellow
m
en.
T
hus it is inevitable that a theory that tries to understand international pol-
itics as it actually is and as it ought to be in view
o
f its intrinsic nature, rather than
as people w
ould like to see it, m
ust overcom
e a psychological resistance that m
ost
other branches o
f learning need not face. A
book devoted to the theoretical
understanding of international politics therefore requires a special explanation
and justification.
6See pages 37 ff.
7See pages 101 ff.
UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
D
ifferent Approaches
T
his book has tw
o purposes. T
he first is to detect and understand the forces th~t
determ
ine political relations am
ong nations, and to_ com
pr~hend th~ _w
ays m
w
hich those forces act upon one another and upon m
ternat1onal political rela-
tions and institutions. In m
ost other branches o
f the social sciences, this purpose
w
ould be taken for granted, because the natural aim
o
f all scientific undertakin~s
is to discover the forces underlying social phenom
ena and the m
ode of theu
operation. In approaching the study o
f international politics, one cannot take
this purpose for granted; it therefore requires special em
phasis. A
s D
r. G
rayson
K
irk has put it:
U
ntil recent tim
es the study of international relations in
the U
nited States
has been dom
inated largely by persons w
ho have taken one of three
approaches. First there have been the historians w
ho have considered interna-
tional relations m
erely as recent history, in w
hich the student is handicapped
by the absence of an adequate am
ount of available data. A
second group, the
international law
yers, have properly concerned them
selves prim
arily w
ith the
legal aspects of interstate relations, but they have seldom
m
ade a serious
effort to inquire into the fundam
ental reasons for the continuing incom
plete-
ness and inadequacy of this legal nexus. Finally, there have been those w
ho
have been less concerned w
ith international relations as they are than w
ith
the m
ore perfect system
w
hich these idealists w
ould like to build. O
nly
recently-and belatedly-have students undertaken to exam
ine the fundam
en-
tal and persistent forces of w
orld politics, and the institutions w
hich em
body
them
, not w
ith a view
to praise or to condem
n, but m
erely in an effort to
provide a better understanding of these basic drives w
hich determ
ine the
17
1
8
The S
cience of International P
olitics
foreign policies o
f states. T
hus the political scientist is m
oving into the inter-
national field at last. 1
Professor C
harles E. M
artin has taken up D
r. K
irk’s them
e by pointing to
the problem
w
hich faces the students and the teachers of international rela-
tions :nore than any other, nam
ely, that dualism
w
e have to face in m
oving in
tw
o different and opposite areas. I m
ean the area o
f institutions o
f peace
w
hich are rel~ted to the adjustm
ent of disputes and the area o
f
pow
er politics
and w
ar. Y
et, It m
ust be so. There is no escape from
it. … I think probably
one of the greatest indictm
ents of our attitude in teaching in the last tw
enty
years has been to w
rite off glibly the institution of w
ar and to w
rite off the
books the influence of pow
er politics. I think political scientists m
ake a great
1:1istake (n ~oin~ so: W
e should be the very ones w
ho are studying pow
er poli-
tJCs and Its 1m
phcat1ons and the situations grow
ing out of it, and w
e should be
the ones w
ho study the institution of w
ar. 2
.
D
efined in s~ch term
s, international politics as an academ
ic discipline is dis-
tm
ct from
recent history and current events, international law
, and political reform
.
International politics em
braces m
ore than recent history and current events.
T
he ob~erver is sur~ounded by_ the contem
porary scene w
ith its
ever-shifting
em
phasis and changm
g perspectives. H
e cannot find solid ground on w
hich to
stand, or objective standards o
f evaluation, w
ithout getting dow
n to fundam
entals
that are revealed only by the correlation o
f recent events w
ith the m
ore distant
past and the perennial qualities o
f hum
an nature underlying both.
International
politics
cannot be
reduced
to
legal
rules
and institutions.
!nternational politics operates w
ithin the fram
ew
ork o
f su~h rules and through the
m
strum
entality o
f such institutions. B
ut it is no m
ore identical w
ith them
than
A
m
erican politics on the national level is identical w
ith the A
m
erican C
onstitution
the federal law
s, and the agencies o
f the federal governm
ent.
‘
C
oncerning atte_m
pts to reform
international politics before m
aking an effort
to understand w
hat m
ternational politics is about, w
e share W
illiam
G
raham
Sum
ner’s view
:
The w
orst vice in political discussions is that dogm
atism
w
hich takes its stand
on great principles or assum
ptions, instead o
fstanding on an exact exam
ina-
tion o
f things as they are and hum
an nature as it is…. A
n ideal is form
ed of
som
e higher or better state o
f things than now
exists, and alm
ost unconsciously
the ideal is assum
ed as already existing and m
ade the basis of speculations
w
hich have no root…. T
he w
hole m
ethod o
f abstract speculation on politi-
cal topics is vicious. It is popular because it is easy; it is easier to im
agine a
new
w
orld than to learn to know
this one; it is easier to em
bark on specula-
tions based on a few
broad assum
ptions than it is to study the history of
1A
m
ericanjoum
al o
fInternational Law
, V
ol. 39 (1945), pp. 369-70.
2Proceedings o
fthe Eighth Conference o
fTeachers ofIntem
ational Law
and Related Subjects (W
ashington, D
C
:
C
arnegie E
ndow
m
ent for International Peace, 1946), p. 66.
U
nderstanding International P
olitics
19
states and institutions; it is easier to catch up a popular dogm
a than it is to
analyze it to see w
hether it is true or not. A
ll this leads to confusion, to the
adm
ission of phrases and platitudes, to m
uch disputing but little gain in the
prosperity of nations. 3
lim
itations to U
nderstanding
T
he m
ost form
idable difficulty facing a theoretical inquiry into the nature and
w
ays o
f international politics is the am
biguity
o
f the m
aterial w
ith w
hich the
observer has to deal. T
he events he m
ust try to understand are, on the one hand,
unique occurrences: they happened in this w
ay only once and never before or
since. O
n the other hand, they are sim
ilar, for they are
m
anifestations o
f social
forces. Social forces are the product o
f hum
an nature in action. T
herefore, under
sim
ilar conditions, they w
ill m
anifest them
selves in a sim
ilar m
anner. B
ut w
here
is the line to be draw
n betw
een the sim
ilar and the unique?
T
his am
biguity o
f the events to be understood by a theory o
f international
politics-it m
ay be pointed out in passing-is but a special instance o
f a general
im
pedim
ent to hum
an understanding. “A
s no event and no shape,” observes
M
ontaigne, “is entirely like another, so also is there none entirely different from
another: an ingenious m
ixture on the part o
fN
ature. ffthere were no sim
ilarity in our
faces, we could not distinguish m
anfrom
beast; ifthere were no dissim
ilarity, we could not
distinguish one m
anfrom
another. A
ll things hold together by som
e sim
ilarity; every
exam
ple is halting, and the com
parison that is derived from
experience is
alw
ays
defective and im
perfect. A
nd yet one links up the com
parisons at som
e corner.
A
nd so do law
s becom
e serviceable and adapt them
selves to every one o
f our
affairs by som
e w
rested, forced, and biased interpretation.”
4 It is against such
“w
rested, forced, and biased interpretation” o
f political events that a theory o
f
international politics m
ust be continuously on guard.
W
e learn w
hat the principles o
f international politics are from
com
parisons
betw
een such events. A
certain political situation evokes the form
ulation and execu-
tion o
fa certain foreign policy. D
ealing w
ith a different political situation, w
e ask our-
selves: how
does this situation differ from
the preceding one, and how
is it sim
ilar?
D
o the sim
ilarities reaffirm
the policy developed previously? O
r does the blending
o
fsim
ilarities and differences allow
the essence o
fthat policy to be retained w
hile, in
som
e aspects, it is to be m
odified? O
r do the differences vitiate the analogy altogether
and m
ake the previous policy inapplicable? If one w
ants to understand international
politics, grasp the m
eaning o
f contem
porary events, and foresee and influence the
future, one m
ust be able to perform
the dual intellectual task im
plicit in these ques-
tions. O
ne m
ust be able to distinguish betw
een the sim
ilarities and differences in tw
o
political situations. Furtherm
ore, one m
ust be able to assess the im
port o
f these
3″D
em
ocracy and R
esponsible G
overnm
ent,” The Challenge o
fFacts and O
ther Essays (N
ew
H
aven, C
T
:
Y
ale U
niversity Press, 1914), pp. 245-46.
4The Essays o
fM
ichel de M
ontaigne, edited and translated by Jacob Z
eitlin (N
ew
Y
ork: A
lfred A. K
nopf,
1936), V
ol. III, p. 270; M
ontaigne’s italics.
2
0
The S
cience of International P
olitics
sim
ilarities and differences for alternative foreign policies. Three series of events
taken at random
, w
ill illustrate the problem
and its difficulties.
‘
O
n Septem
ber 17, 1796, G
eorge W
ashington m
ade a speech in w
hich he bade
farew
ell t~ the nation, outlining the principles o
fA
m
erican foreign policy in term
s
o
fabstent10n from
E
uropean affairs. O
n D
ecem
ber 2, 1823, President M
onroe sent
a ~ess~ge ~o _C
ongress in w
hich he form
ulated the principles o
f A
m
erican foreign
policy m
sim
ilar term
s. In 1917, the U
nited States joined France and G
reat B
ritain
against G
erm
any, w
hich threatened the independence o
fboth. In 1941, the U
nited
~tates follow
ed a sim
ilar course of action. O
n M
arch 12, 1947, President T
rum
an,
:n a m
essage to C
ongress, reform
ulated the principles o
f A
m
erican foreign policy
m
term
s o
f the w
orldw
ide containm
ent o
f C
om
m
unism
.
In 1512, H
enry V
III o
fE
ngland m
ade an alliance w
ith the H
apsbu;gs against
France. In 151:5,_ he m
ade an alliance w
ith France against the H
apsburgs. In 1522
and 1542, he Jm
ned the H
apsburgs against France. In 1756, G
reat B
ritain allied
itself w
ith Prussia against the H
apsburgs and France. In 1793, G
reat B
ritain, Prussia,
and the H
apsburgs w
ere allied against N
apoleon. In 1914, G
reat B
ritain joined w
ith
France and R
ussia against A
ustria and G
erm
any, and in 1939 w
ith France and
Poland against G
erm
any.
N
apoleon, W
ilhelm
II, and H
itler tried to conquer the continent o
f E
urope
and failed.
A
re there w
ithin each o
f these three series o
f events sim
ilarities that allow
us
to form
ulate a principle o
f foreign policy for each series? O
r is each event so dif-
ferent from
the others in the series that each w
ould require a different policy? T
he
diffi~ulty in m
aking this decision is the m
easure o
f the difficulty in m
aking cor-
r~ct Jud_gm
~nts in (oreign policy, in charting the future. w
isely, and in doing the
nght thm
g m
the nght w
ay and at the right tim
e.
Should the foreign policy in W
ashington’s Farew
ell A
ddress be considered a
g~~eral principle_ o
f ~
~
rican
foreign policy, or did it stem
from
tem
porary con-
d1t1o~s and w
as its validity therefore lim
ited to them
? A
re the foreign policies o
f
W
ashington’s and M
onroe’s m
essages com
patible w
ith the T
rum
an D
octrine? To
state the problem
another w
ay, is the T
rum
an D
octrine a m
ere m
odification o
f a
gen~ral principle underlying W
ashington’s and M
onroe’s conception o
f foreign
affairs, or does the T
rum
an D
octrine constitute a radical departure from
the tradi-
tions. ~
f A
m
erican foreign p_olicy? Ifit does, is it justified in the light o
f changed
cond1ti?ns? G
ener_ally speaking, do the differences in the international position o
f
the_l-!111ted States m
1796, 1823, 1917, 1941, and 1947 justify the different foreign
policies form
ulated and executed w
ith regard to these different political situations?
W
hat are
the sim
ilarities and differences in the situations w
ith w
hich E
urope
confronted the U
nited States in 1917, 1941, and 1947, and to w
hat extent do they
require sim
ilar or different foreign policies on the part o
f the U
nited States?
W
hat is the m
eaning of those shifts in B
ritish foreign policy? H
ave they
grow
n from
the w
him
~nd perfidy of princes and statesm
en? O
r are they inspired
by the accum
ulated w
isdom
o
f a people m
indful o
f the perm
anent forces, tran-
scending any particular alignm
ent, that determ
ine their relations to the continent
o
f E
urope?
U
nderstanding International P
olitics
21
A
re the disasters that follow
ed in the w
ake o
f the three attem
pts at conti-
nental conquest so m
any accidents due to disparate causes? O
r does the sim
ilarity
in results point to sim
ilarities in the overall political situation, sim
ilarities that
convey a lesson to be pondered by those w
ho m
ight w
ant to try again? M
ore par-
ticularly, w
ere the policies the Soviet U
nion pursued in the afterm
ath o
f the
Second W
orld W
ar sim
ilar to those o
f N
apoleon, W
ilhelm
II, and H
itler? Ifthey
w
ere, did they call for policies on the part of the U
nited States sim
ilar to those
pursued in 1917 and 1941?
Som
etim
es, as in the case o
f the changes in B
ritish foreign policy, the answ
er
seem
s to be clear: that policy proceeded from
w
isdom
rather than from
w
him
.
M
ost o
f the tim
e, how
ever, and especially w
hen w
e deal w
ith the present and the
future, the answ
er is bound to be tentative and subject to qualifications. T
he facts
from
w
hich the answ
er m
ust derive are essentially am
biguous and subject to con-
tinuous change. To those m
en w
ho w
ould have it otherw
ise, history has taught
nothing but false analogies. W
hen such m
en have been responsible for the foreign
policies o
f their countries, they have achieved only disaster. W
ilhelm
II and H
itler
learned nothing from
N
apoleon’s fate, for they thought it could teach them
noth-
ing. T
hose w
ho have erected W
ashington’s advice into a dogm
a to be follow
ed
slavishly have erred no less than those w
ho w
ould dism
iss it altogeth
er.
T
he
M
unich settlem
ent o
f 1938 is another case in point. In retrospect, o
f
course, w
e all know
from
practical experience that it w
as a failure, and from
that
experience w
e have developed the theoretical categories that dem
onstrate that it
w
as bound to be a failure. B
ut I rem
em
ber very w
ell the consensus w
ith w
hich the
M
unich settlem
ent w
as approved at the tim
e of its conclusion by theoreticians
and practitioners o
fforeign policy and by the m
an in the street as w
ell. T
he M
unich
settlem
ent w
as then generally regarded as a great act ofstatesm
anship, a concession
m
ade to a w
ould-be conqueror for the sake ofpeace. E. H
. C
arr so regarded it then,
and A
J.P. T
aylor so regards it now
. T
he flaw
in that reasoning, w
hich few
people
w
ere-and perhaps could be-aw
are o
fat the tim
e, w
as again the neglect o
fthe con-
tingencies inherent in political prediction. T
hat w
hich reveals itself as a sim
ple
truth in retrospect either w
as com
pletely unknow
n in prospect or else could not
be determ
ined by anything but an uncertain hunch.
Take finally the contem
porary issue o
f nuclear w
ar.
From
tim
e to tim
e
A
m
erican policym
akers speak openly about “prevailing” in a nuclear w
ar. In this
they m
irror com
m
ents m
ade by R
ussian m
ilitary leaders-although not by Soviet
political leaders such as B
rezhnev, w
ho m
ore than once w
arned that a therm
onu-
clear w
ar w
ould be suicidal for both superpow
ers. Particularly in the 1980s, as
C
old W
ar tensions m
ounted again, voices in both countries echoed the belief that
victory in a nuclear w
ar w
as not unthinkable, provided augm
ented strategic forces
w
ere
form
ed through vastly increased defense expenditures. It is possible to
develop a theory o
f nuclear w
ar that assum
es nuclear w
ar to be just another kind
o
f violence, greater in m
agnitude but not different in kind from
the types of vio-
lence w
ith w
hich history has acquainted us. It follow
s from
this assum
ption that
nuclear w
ar is going to be m
uch m
ore terrible than conventional w
ar, but not nec-
essarily intolerable, provided w
e take the m
easures that w
ill enable at least som
e
2
2
The S
cience of International P
olitics
~
f us to survive it. In other w
ords, once one starts w
ith this theoretical assum
p-
tion o
f the nature and the consequences o
f nuclear w
ar, one can logically arrive at
the conclusion that the foreign policy o
f the U
nited States does not need to lim
it
itself to trying to avoid nuclear w
ar but that the U
nited States m
ust also prepare
to survive it. A
nd then it becom
es perfectly legitim
ate to raise the question, pro-
vided 100 m
illion A
m
ericans w
ere to be killed in a nuclear w
ar and nine-tenths o
f
the econom
ic capacity o
f the U
nited States w
ere to be destroyed, o
f how
w
e
enable the surviving A
m
ericans to rebuild the U
nited States w
ith the rem
aining
one-tenth o
f econom
ic capacity.
T
he contingent elem
ent in this theory o
f nuclear w
ar is its utter uncertainty,
and this uncertainty is typical o
f all levels o
ftheoretical analysis and prediction in
th~ field o
f politics, dom
estic and international. E
ven if one w
ere to accept all its
es’.1m
ates o
f deaths and m
aterial destruction and o
f the rate o
f m
aterial recovery,
this theory w
ould have to be uncertain about the hum
an reactions to the kind o
f
hum
an
and m
aterial
devastation
that nuclear w
ar
is
likely
to
bring
about.
O
bviously, if a highly com
plex hum
an society could be visualized to operate like
a prim
itive ant society, its recuperative ability could be taken for granted. If one-
half o
f the ants o
f one anthill have been destroyed together w
ith nine-tenths o
f
the m
aterial o
f the anthill, it is safe to conclude that the rem
aining ants w
ill start
all over again, building up the anthill and reproducing until the next catastrophe
forces them
to start all over again.
B
ut a hum
an society does not have this type o
f m
echanical recuperative
ability. Societies have a breaking point as do individuals, and there is a point
beyond w
hich hum
an endurance does not carry hum
an initiative in the face o
f
such unprecedented m
assive devastation. O
nce that point is reached, civilization
itself w
ill collapse. T
he exact location o
f that point in the scale o
f hum
an reactions
is beyond theoretical understanding. \V
hat w
e are left w
ith are hunches that m
ay
or m
ay not be confirm
ed by experience.
T
he first lesson the student o
f international politics m
ust learn and never
forget is that the com
plexities o
f international affairs m
ake sim
ple solutions and
trustw
orthy prophecies im
possible. H
ere the scholar and the charlatan part com
–
pany. K
now
ledge o
f the forces that determ
ine politics am
ong nations, and o
f the
w
ays by w
hich their political relations unfold, reveals the am
biguity o
f the facts o
f
international politics. In every political situation contradictory tendencies are at
play. O
ne o
f these tendencies is m
ore likely to prevail under certain conditions.
B
ut w
hich tendency actually w
ill prevail is anybody’s guess. T
he best the scholar
can do, then, is to trace the different tendencies that, as potentialities, are inherent
in a “certain” international situation. H
e can point out the different conditions
that m
ake it m
ore likely for one tendency to prevail than for another and, finally,
assess the probabilities for the different conditions and tendencies to prevail in
actuality.
T
hus w
orld affairs have surprises in store for w
hoever tries to read the
future from
his know
ledge o
fthe past and from
the signs o
f the present. In 1776,
W
ashington declared that “the Fate o
f our C
ountry depends in all hum
an prob-
ability, on the E
xertion o
f a Few
W
eeks.” Y
as not until seven years later
\
U
nderstanding International P
olitics
23
that the W
ar o
f Independence cam
e to an end. In February 1792, B
ritish prim
e
m
inister Pitt justified the reduction o
f m
ilitary expenditures (particularly a dras-
tic decrease in the personnel o
f the B
ritish navy) and held out hope for
m
ore
reductions to com
e by declaring: “U
nquestionably there never w
as a tim
e in the
history o
f this country w
hen from
the situation o
f E
urope w
e m
ight m
ore rea-
sonably expect fifteen years o
f peace than at the present m
om
ent.” O
nly tw
o
m
onths later the continent o
f E
urope w
as engulfed in w
ar. Less than a year later
G
reat B
ritain w
as involved. T
hus w
as initiated a period o
f alm
ost continuous
w
arfare that lasted nearly a quarter o
f a century. W
hen L
ord G
ranville becam
e
B
ritish foreign secretary in 1870, he w
as inform
ed by the perm
anent undersec-
retary that “he had never, during his long experience, know
n so great a lull in
foreign affairs, and that he w
as not aw
are o
f any im
portant question that he
[L
ord G
ranville] should have to deal w
ith.” O
n that sam
e day Prince L
eopold
o
f H
ohenzollern-Sigm
aringen accepted the crow
n o
f Spain, an event that three
w
eeks later led to the outbreak o
f the Franco-Prussian W
ar. Six w
eeks before the
R
ussian R
evolution o
f M
arch 1917, L
enin told a group o
f young socialists in
Z
urich: “W
e old people w
ill probably not live to see the decisive battles o
f the
com
ing revolution.” Less than a year later, the decisive battles o
f the R
ussian
R
evolution began under his leadership.
W
hen the prophecies o
fgreat statesm
en fare so ill, w
hat can w
e expect from
the predictions o
f lesser m
inds? In how
m
any books w
ritten on international
affairs before the First W
orld W
ar, w
hen com
m
on opinion held great w
ars to be
im
possible or at least o
f short duration, w
as there even an inkling o
f w
hat w
as to
com
e? W
as any book w
ritten in the period betw
een the tw
o w
orld w
ars that could
have helped one anticipate w
hat international politics w
ould be like in the ninth
decade o
f the century? W
ho could have guessed at the beginning ofW
orld W
ar II
w
hat the political w
orld w
ould be like at its end? W
ho could have know
n in 1945
w
hat the w
orld w
ould be like in 1955, or in 1960 w
hat it w
ould be like in 1970 or
1980? W
hat trust then shall w
e place in those w
ho today w
ould tell us
w
hat
tom
orrow
and the day after w
ill bring or w
hat the year 2000 w
ill be like?
5
In
1979
the
intelligence com
m
unity,
and
m
ore
particularly the
C
entral
Intelligence A
gency, w
ere criticized for their failure to w
arn A
m
erican policym
akers
of the upheavals that culm
inated in the Shah oflran’s ouster. President C
arter him
–
self took the unprecedented step ofpublicly reprim
anding the highest authorities in
the intelligence field for their lack of foresight.
W
hat accounts for this failure of foresight on the part o
f otherw
ise intelligent
and responsible people? T
he answ
er lies in the nature of the em
pirical m
aterial
w
ith w
hich these individuals had to deal. T
he observer is confronted w
ith a m
ul-
titude o
f factors, the totality o
f w
hich shape the future. In order to foresee the
5T
he fallibility o
f prophecies in international affairs is strikingly dem
onstrated by the fantastic errors
com
m
itted by the experts w
ho have tried to forecast the nature o
f the next w
ar. T
he history o
f these
forecasts, from
M
achiavelli to G
eneral J.F.C
. Fuller, is the story oflogical deductions, plausible in
them
selves, that had no connection w
ith the contingencies o
f the actual historical developm
ent.
G
eneral Fuller, for instance, foresaw
in 1923 that the decisive w
eapon of the Second W
orld W
ar
w
ould be gas! See 77Je Reform
ation o
fW
ar (N
ew
Y
ork. E. P. D
utton, 1923).
2
4
The S
cience of International P
olitics
future, the observer w
ould have to know
all these factors, their dynam
ics, their
m
utual actions and reactions, and so forth. W
hat he actually know
s and can know
is but a sm
all fragm
ent o
f the total. H
e m
ust guess-and only the future w
ill show
w
ho chose rightly am
ong the m
any possible guesses.
T
hus, w
ith regard to Iran the intelligence com
m
unity guessed w
rong.
Instead o
f blam
ing it indiscrim
inately, one ought to ask oneself tw
o questions:
C
ould one have pinpointed in tim
e the outbreak o
f popular discontent? If the
answ
er is in the affirm
ative, w
hat could the U
nited States have done about it
?
T
he answ
er to the second question is, at best: very little. T
his is probably w
hy
the intelligence com
m
unity paid less attention to Iran than it m
ight have done
in the first place.
It is sobering to note that the science o
f econom
ics, presum
ed to be the
m
ost precise o
f the social sciences because its central concept, w
ealth, is quanti-
tative by definition, is sim
ilarly incapable o
f reliable prediction. An exam
ination
o
f a large num
ber o
f forecasts o
f year-to-year changes in the A
m
erican G
N
P
for
the years 1953-63 established an average error o
f about 40 percent. 6 In O
ctober
1966 the Prudential Life Insurance C
om
pany predicted that in 1967 consum
er
expenditures w
ould rise by 31 billion dollars and inventory investm
ents w
ould
am
ount to 7.5 billion dollars. In O
ctober 1967 it scaled its estim
ate o
f consum
er
expenditures dow
n to 27 billion dollars, an error o
f alm
ost 15 percent, assum
ing
the correctness o
f the revised estim
ate; it reduced its estim
ate o
f inventory invest-
m
ents to 7 billion dollars. T
he C
ouncil o
f E
conom
ic A
dvisors overestim
ated the
grow
th o
f the G
N
P
for the sam
e year by about 12 percent.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE
T
hese questions lead us to the secondary purpose o
f this book. N
o study o
f poli-
tics, and certainly no study o
f international politics in the final decades o
f the
tw
entieth century, can be disinterested in the sense that it is able to divorce know
l-
edge from
action and to pursue know
ledge for its ow
n sake. International politics
is no longer, as it w
as for the U
nited States during m
ost o
f its history, a series o
f
incidents, costly or rew
arding, but hardly calling into question the nation’s ve1y
existence and destiny. T
he existence and destiny o
f the U
nited States w
ere m
ore
deeply affected by the dom
estic events o
f the C
ivil W
ar than by the international
policies leading up to, and evolving from
, the M
exican W
ar, the Spanish-A
m
erican
W
ar, and the R
oosevelt corollary to the M
onroe D
octrine. 7
6V
iktor Z
arnow
itz, A
n Appraisal o
fShort-Tenn Econom
ic Forecasts (N
ew
Y
ork: N
ational B
ureau o
f
E
conom
ic R
esearch, 1967).
7T
his corollary is found in the m
essage o
fT
heodore R
oosevelt to C
ongress on D
ecem
ber 6, 1904. In
that m
essage he proclaim
ed the right o
f the U
nited States to intervene in the dom
estic affairs o
f the
L
atin A
m
erican countries. For the text, see R
uhl J. B
artlett, editor, The Record o
fAm
erican D
iplom
acy:
D
ocum
ents and Readings in the H
istory o
fAm
erican Foreign Relations, 4
th ed. (N
ew
Y
ork: A
lfred A
.
K
nopf, 1964), p. 539.
U
nderstanding the P
roblem
o
f International Peace
25
Tw
o facts peculiar to our tim
e have com
pletely reversed the relative im
por-
tance o
f dom
estic and international policies for the U
nited States. First o
f all, the
U
nited States is at the m
om
ent o
f this w
riting one of the tw
o m
ost pow
erful
nations on earth. Y
et, in com
parison w
ith its actual and potential com
petitors, it is
not so pow
erful that it can afford to ignore the effect o
f its policies upon its posi-
tion am
ong the nations. From
the end o
f the C
ivil W
ar to the beginning o
f the
Second W
orld W
ar, it m
attered little w
hat policies the U
nited States pursued w
ith
regard to its L
atin A
m
erican neighbors, C
hina, or Spain. T
he self-sufficiency o
f its
ow
n strength, in conjunction w
ith the operation o
fthe balance o
fpow
er, m
ade the
U
nited States
im
m
une to the boundless am
bition born of success and the fear and
frustration that goes w
ith failure. T
he U
nited States could take success and failure
in stride w
ithout being unduly tem
pted or afraid. N
ow
it stands outside the enclo-
sures o
f its continental citadel, taking on the w
hole o
f the political w
orld as friend
or foe. It has becom
e dangerous and vulnerable, feared and afraid.
T
he risk o
f being very pow
erful, but not om
nipotent, is aggravated by the
second fact: a threefold revolution in the political structure o
f the w
orld. First,
the m
ultiple-state system
o
f the past, w
hose center w
as in E
urope, has been
replaced by a w
orldw
ide, bipolar system
w
hose centers lie
outside E
urope.
Furtherm
ore, the m
oral unity o
f the political w
orld, w
hich has distinguished
W
estern civilization during m
ost o
f its history, has been split into tw
o incom
–
patible system
s o
f thought and action, com
peting everyw
here for the allegiance
o
f m
en. Finally, m
odern technology has m
ade possible total w
ar resulting in
universal destruction. T
he preponderance o
f these three new
elem
ents in con-
tem
porary international ‘politics has not only m
ade the preservation o
f w
orld
peace extrem
ely difficult but has also increased the risks inherent in w
ar to the
point w
here all-out nuclear w
ar becom
es a self-defeating absurdity. Since in this
w
orld situation the U
nited States holds a position o
f predom
inant pow
er, and
hence o
f forem
ost responsibility, the understanding of the forces that m
old
international politics and o
f the factors that determ
ine its course has becom
e for
the U
nited States
m
ore
than an interesting intellectual occupation.
It has
becom
e a vital necessity.
To reflect on international politics from
the vantage point o
f the contem
–
porary U
nited States, then, is to reflect upon the vital problem
s that confront
A
m
erican foreign policy in our tim
e. W
hile at all tim
es the prom
otion o
f the
national interests o
f the U
nited States as a pow
er am
ong pow
ers has been the
m
ain concern o
f A
m
erican foreign policy, in an age that has seen tw
o w
orld w
ars
and has learned how
to w
age total w
ar w
ith nuclear w
eapons, the preservation of
peace has becom
e the prim
e concern o
f all nations.
It is for this reason that this book is planned around the tw
o concepts o
f
pow
er and peace. T
hese tw
o concepts are central to a discussion o
f w
orld politics
in the final decades o
f the tw
entieth century, w
hen an unprecedented accum
ula-
tion o
f destructive pow
er gives to the problem
o
f peace an urgency it has never
had before. In a w
orld w
hose m
oving force is the aspiration o
f sovereign nations
for pow
er, peace can be m
aintained only by tw
o devices. O
ne is the self-regulatory
m
echanism
o
f the social forces, w
hich m
anifests itself in the struggle for pow
er
2
6
The S
cience of International P
olitics
on the international scene-that is, the balance o
f pow
er. T
he other consists o
f
norm
ative lim
itations upon that struggle, in the form
o
f international law
, inter-
national m
orality, and w
orld public opinion. Since neither o
f these devices, as
they operate today, is likely to keep the struggle for pow
er indefinitely w
ithin
peaceful bounds, three further questions m
ust be asked and answ
ered: W
hat is the
value o
f the m
ain current proposals for the m
aintenance of international peace?
M
ore particularly, w
hat is the value o
f the proposal for transform
ing the interna-
tional society o
f sovereign nations into a supranational organization, such as a
w
orld state? A
nd, finally, w
hat m
ust a program
for action be like that is m
indful
o
f the lessons of the past and endeavors to adapt them
to the problem
s of the
present?
W
HAT IS POLITICAL PDW
ER?
1
International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for pow
er. W
hatever the ulti-
m
ate
aim
s
o
f international
politics,
pow
er
is
alw
ays
the
im
m
ediate
aim
.
Statesm
en and peoples m
ay ultim
ately seek freedom
, security, prosperity, or
pow
er itself. T
hey m
ay qefine their goals in term
s o
f a religious, philosophic,
econom
ic, or social ideal. T
hey m
ay hope that this ideal w
ill m
aterialize through
its ow
n inner force, through divine intervention, or through the natural devel-
opm
ent o
f hum
an affairs. T
hey m
ay also try to further its realization through
nonpolitical m
eans, such as technical cooperation w
ith other nations or inter-
national organizations. B
ut w
henever they strive to realize their goal by m
eans
o
f international politics, they do so by striving for pow
er. T
he C
rusaders w
anted to
free the holy places from
dom
ination by the Infidels; W
oodrow
W
ilson w
anted to
m
ake the w
orld safe for dem
ocracy; the N
azis w
anted to open E
astern E
urope
to G
erm
an colonization, to dom
inate E
urope, and to conquer the w
orld. Since
they all chose pow
er to achieve these ends, they w
ere actors on the scene o
f
international politics. 2
Tw
o conclusions follow
from
this concept ofinternational politics. First, not
every action that a nation perform
s w
ith respect to another nation is of a political
1T
he concept o
f political pow
er poses one o
f the m
ost difficult and controversial problem
s o
f politi-
cal science. T
he value o
f any concept used in political science is determ
ined by its ability to explain
a m
axim
um
o
f the phenom
ena that are conventionally considered to belong to a certain sphere of
political activity. T
hus the coverage of a concept o
f political pow
er, to be useful for the understand-
ing of international politics, m
ust be broader than the coverage o
f one adopted to operate in the
field of m
unicipal politics. T
he political m
eans em
ployed in the latter are m
uch m
ore narrow
ly cir-
cum
scribed than are those em
ployed in international politics.
2For som
e significant rem
arks on pow
er in relation to international politics, see L
ionel R
obbins, The
Econom
ic Causes o
fW
ar (L
ondon: Jonathan C
ape, 1939), pp. 63 ff.
2
9
3
0
P
olitical P
ow
er nature. M
any such activities are norm
ally undertaken w
ithout any consideration
o
fpow
er, nor do they norm
ally affect the pow
er o
f the nation undertaking them
.
M
any legal, econom
ic, hum
anitarian, and cultural activities are o
f this kind. T
hus
a nation is not norm
ally engaged in international politics w
hen it concludes an
extradition treaty w
ith another nation, w
hen it exchanges goods and services w
ith
other nations, w
hen it cooperates w
ith other nations in providing relief from
nat-
ural catastrophes, and w
hen it prom
otes the distribution o
f cultural achievem
ents
throughout the w
orld. In other w
ords, the involvem
ent o
f a nation in interna-
tional politics is but one am
ong m
any types o
factivities in w
hich a nation can par-
ticipate on the international scene.
Second, not all nations are at all tim
es to the sam
e extent involved in inter-
national politics. T
he degree o
f their involvem
ent m
ay run all the w
ay from
the
m
axi~u1:1 at pr~sent attained by the U
nited States and the Soviet U
nion; through
the m
m
1m
um
m
volvem
ent o
f such countries as
Sw
itzerland, L
uxem
bourg, or
V
enezuela; to the com
plete noninvolvem
ent o
fL
iechtenstein and M
onaco. Sim
ilar
extrem
es can be noticed in the history o
f particular countries. Spain in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries w
as one o
f the m
ain active participants in the
struggle for pow
er on the international scene but plays today only a m
arginal role
in it. T
he sam
e is true o
f such countries as A
ustria, Sw
eden, and Sw
itzerland. O
n
the other hand, nations such as the U
nited States, the Soviet U
nion, and C
hina are
today m
uch m
ore deeply involved in international politics than they w
ere fifty or
even tw
enty years ago. In short, the relation o
fnations to international politics has
a dynam
ic quality. It changes w
ith the vicissitudes o
f pow
er, w
hich m
ay push a
nation into the forefront o
f the pow
er struggle or m
ay deprive a nation o
f the abil-
ity to participate actively in it. It m
ay also change under the im
pact o
f cultural
transform
ations, w
hich m
ay m
ake a nation prefer other pursuits, for instance com
–
m
erce, to those o
fpow
er. T
he tendency o
f countries to be involved to a greater or
lesser extent in the struggle for pow
er prom
pted A
rnold W
olfers to observe that
they occupied positions at opposite extrem
es o
f a spectrum
extending from
w
hat
he called the pole o
f pow
er to the pole o
f indifference.
Its N
ature: Frmmr Distiru::th:m
s
\X
l
hen w
e speak o
f pow
er in the context o
f this book, w
e have in m
ind not m
an’s
pow
er over nature; or over an artistic m
edium
, such as language, speech, sound,
or color; or over the m
eans o
f production or consum
ption; or over him
self in the
sense o
f self-control. W
hen w
e speak o
f pow
er, w
e m
ean m
an’s control over the
m
inds and actions o
f other m
en. B
y political pow
er w
e refer to the m
utual rela-
tions of control am
ong the holders of public authority and betw
een the latter and
the people at large.
Political pow
er is a psychological relation betw
een those w
ho exercise it and
those over w
hom
it is exercised. It gives the form
er control over certain actions of
the latter through the effect that the form
er has on the latter’s m
inds. T
hat effect
derives from
three sources: the expectation o
f benefits, the fear o
f disadvantages,
and the respect or love for m
en or institutions. It m
ay be exerted through orders,
W
hat Is P
olitical P
ow
er?
31
threats, the authority or charism
a o
f a m
an or o
f an office, or a com
bination o
f any
of these.
In view
o
f this definition, four distinctions m
ust be m
ade: betw
een pow
er
and influence, betw
een pow
er and force, betw
een usable and unusable pow
er, and
betw
een legitim
ate anq
ill
egitim
ate pow
er.
T
he secretary of state w
ho advises the president o
f the U
nited States on the
conduct o
f A
m
erican foreign policy has influence if the president follow
s his
advice. B
ut he has no pow
er over the president; for he has none of the m
eans at
his disposal w
ith w
hich to im
pose his w
ill upon that o
f the president. H
e can per-
suade but he cannot com
pel. T
he president, on the other hand, has pow
er over
the secretary of state; for he can im
pose his w
ill upon the latter by virtue o
f the
authority o
f his office, the prom
ise o
f benefits, and the threat o
f disadvantages.
Political pow
er m
ust be distinguished from
force in the sense of the act~al
exercise o
f physical violence. T
he threat o
fphysical violence in the form
o
f pohc_e
action, im
prisonm
ent, capital punishm
ent, or w
ar is an intrins~c e!em
ent o
f ??h-
tics. W
hen violence becom
es an actuality, it signifies the abdication o
f political
pow
er in favor of m
ilitary or pseudom
ilitary P?”‘.er. _In internat!onal politics in
particular, arm
ed strength as a threat or a potentiality is the m
ost im
portant 1:11-at_e-
rial factor m
aking for the political pow
er o
f a nation. If it becom
es an actuality _m
w
ar, it signifies the substitution o
f m
ilitary for political pow
er. T
he actual exe_m
se
of physical violence substitutes for the psychological relation betw
een tw
o m
m
ds,
w
hich is o
f the essence o
f political pow
er, the physical relation betw
een tw
o bod-
ies, one o
f w
hich is strong enough to dom
inate the other’s m
ove1:1ents. It is for
this reason that in the exercise o
f physical violence the psychological elem
ent of
the political relationship is lost and that w
e m
ust distinguish betw
een m
ilitary and
political pow
er
.
.
.
.
T
he availability o
fnuclear w
eapons m
akes it necessary to distm
gm
sh betw
een
usable and unusable pow
er. It is one of the paradoxes of the nuclear age that, in
contrast to the experience of all of prenuclear history, an increase in m
ilitary
pow
er is no longer necessarily conducive to an increase in politica! pow
er. T
he
threat of all-out nuclear violence im
plies the threat o
f total destruct10n. A
s such,
it can still be a suitable instrum
ent o
f foreign policy w
hen addressed to a nation
that cannot reply in kind. T
he nation arm
ed w
ith nuclear w
eapons can assert
pow
er over the other nation by saying: “E
ither you do as I say, or I w
ill des:roy
you.” T
he situation is different if the nation so threatened can respond by saym
g:
“Ifyou destroy m
e w
ith nuclear w
eapons, you w
ill be destroyed !n turn.” H
ere ~he
m
utual threats cancel each other out. Since the nuclear destruction of one nation
w
ould call forth the nuclear destruction o
f the other, both nations can afford to
disregard the threat on the assum
ption that both w
ill act rationally. .
.
It is only on the assum
ption that the nations concerned m
ight act m
a-
tionally by destroying each other in an all-out nuclear w
ar that the threat of
nuclear w
ar is credible and has indeed been used by the U
nited States and the
Soviet U
nion against each other, for instance by the Soviet U
nion during the Suez
C
risis of 1956, by the U
nited States during the B
erlin C
risis o
f 1961, and by both
during the A
rab-Israeli W
ar o
f 1973. Y
et w
hile here the threat o
f force can be used
32
Political P
ow
er as a rational instrum
ent o
fforeign policy, the actual use o
f that force rem
ains irra-
~ional; ~or the th:eatened force w
ould be used not for the political purpose o
f
m
fluencm
~ the :”ill o
f the other side but for the irrational purpose o
f destroying
the other side w
ith the attendant assurance o
f one’s ow
n destruction.
T
hus the m
agnitude o
f its destructiveness, as com
pared w
ith the lim
ited
character o
f the political purposes that are the proper object o
fforeign policy, ren-
ders nuclear force unusable as an instrum
ent o
f foreign policy. It can be rational
under certain condi~ions to threaten the other side w
ith destruction through the
use o
f nuclear force m
order to change the other side’s w
ill; it w
ould be irrational
to actually destroy the other side, thereby inviting one’s ow
n destruction. In con-
~rast,_ c~nventional force is usable as an instrum
ent o
fforeign policy; for by inflict-
m
g lim
ited dam
age w
ith com
m
ensurate risks to oneself, one can use it indeed as
a suitable instrum
ent for changing the other side’s w
ill.
.
.
Finally, legitim
_at~ po:ver-that is, pow
er w
hose exercise is m
orally or legally
Justified-m
ust be distm
gm
shed from
illegitim
ate pow
er. Pow
er exercised w
ith
m
oral ~r legal authority m
ust be distinguished from
naked pow
er. T
he p
ow
er o
f
t~e police officer w
ho searches m
e by virtue o
f a search w
arrant is qualitatively
different from
the pow
er o
f a robber w
ho perform
s the sam
e action by virtue o
f
his holding a gun. T
he distinction is not only philosophically valid but also rel-
evant for the conduct o
f foreign policy. L
egitim
ate pow
er, w
hich can invoke a
m
oral or legal justification for its exercise, is likely to be m
ore effective than
equivalent illegitim
ate pow
er, w
hich cannot be so justified. T
hat is to say, legiti-
m
ate_ po’:~
r has a better chance to influence the w
ill o
f its objects than equiva-
lent illegitim
ate pow
er. Pow
er exercised in self-defense or in the nam
e o
f the
U
nited N
ations has a better chance to succeed than does equivalent pow
er exer-
cised by an “aggressor” nation or in violation o
f international law
. Political ide-
ologies, as w
e shall see, serve the purpose o
f endow
ing foreign policies w
ith the
appearance o
f legitim
acy.
W
hile it is generally recognized that the interplay o
f the expectation o
f
benefits, the fear o
f disadvantages, and the respect or love for m
en or institu-
tion~, in ever-changing com
binations, form
s the basis o
f all dom
estic politics,
the im
portance o
f these factors for international politics is less obvious but no
les~ real. T
here has been a tendency to reduce political pow
er to the actual appli-
cat10n o
f force, or at least to equate it w
ith successful threats o
f force and w
ith
persuasion, to the neglect o
f charism
a. T
hat neglect, as w
e shall see, 3 accounts
in good m
easure for the neglect o
f prestige as an independent elem
ent in inter-
national politics. Y
et w
ithout taking into account the charism
a o
f a m
an, such
as N
apoleon or H
itler, or o
f an institution, such as
the governm
ent or the
U
nited States C
onstitution, evoking trust and love through w
hich the w
ills o
f
m
en subm
it them
selves to the w
ill o
f such a m
an or institution, it is im
possible
to understand certain phenom
ena o
f international politics that have been par-
ticularly prom
inent in m
odern tim
es.
3See C
hapter 6.
W
hat Is P
olitical P
ow
er?
33
T
he im
portance that charism
atic leadership and the response to it as l_ove
o
f the subject for the leader has for international politics is clearly rev~aled 111 a
letter that John D
urie, Scotch Presbyterian and w
orker fo_r ~rotestant u~ity, w
rote
i ·n 1632 to the B
ritish A
m
bassador T
hom
as R
oe, explam
m
g the decl111e o
f the
.
pow
er o
f G
ustavus A
dolphus o
fSw
eden, then fighting for the Protestant cause 111
G
erm
any:
The increase of his authority is the ground of his abode; and love is the
ground of his authority; it m
ust be through love; for it cannot be through
pow
er; for his pow
er is not in his ow
n subjects but in strangers’. not in ~is
m
oney, but in theirs; not in their good w
ill, but in m
ere necessity as thm
gs
stand now
betw
ixt him
and them
; therefore if the necessity be not so urgent
as it is; or if any other m
eans be show
n by G
od (w
ho is able to do as m
uch
by another m
an as by him
) to avoid this necessity; the m
oney and the pow
er
and the assistance w
hich it yieldeth unto him
w
ill fall from
him
and so his
authority is lost, and his abode w
ill be no longer: for the Love w
hich w
as at
first is gone…. 4
T
he president o
fthe U
nited States exerts political pow
er over the executive branch
o
f the governm
ent so long as his orders are obeyed by the m
em
bers o
f that
branch. T
he leader o
f the party has political pow
er so long as he is able to m
old
the actions o
fthe m
em
bers of the party according to his w
ill. W
e refer to the polit-
ical pow
er o
f an industrialist, a labor leader, or a lobbyist in so far as his p~erer-
ences influence the actiop.s o
f public officials. T
he U
nited States exerts political
pow
er over Puerto R
ico so long as the law
s o
f the U
nited States are observe~ by
the citizens of that island. W
hen w
e speak o
f the political pow
er of the U
m
ted
States in
C
entral A
m
erica, w
e have in m
ind the conform
ity of the actions o
f
C
entral A
m
erican governm
ents w
ith the w
ishes o
f the governm
ent o
f the U
nited
States. 5 T
hus the statem
ent that A
has or w
ants political pow
er over B
signifies
alw
ays that A
is able, or w
ants to be able, to control certain actions of B
through
influencing B
‘s m
ind.
. ..
W
hatever the m
aterial objectives o
f a foreign policy, such as the acqm
sit1on
o
f sources o
f raw
m
aterials, the control of sea lanes, or territorial changes, they
alw
ays entail control o
f the actions o
f others through influence over their m
inds.
T
he R
hine frontier as a century-old objective o
f French foreign policy points to
the political objective to destroy the desire of G
erm
any to attack Fran~e ?Y m
ak-
ing it physically difficult or im
possible for G
erm
any to do so. G
reat B
ntam
ow
ed
its predom
inant position in w
orld politics throughout the nineteenth ce_nt~ry to
the calculated policy o
f m
aking it either too dangerous (because G
reat B
ntam
w
as
4G
unnar W
estin, N
egotiations A
bout Church U
nity, 1628-1634 (U
psala: A
lm
quist and W
iksells, 1932),
p. 208. T
he spelling has been m
odernized.
.
.
. .
.
‘T
he exam
ples in the text illustrate also the distm
ctton betw
een pohtIC
al pow
er ~s m
ere soC1al fact, _as
in the case o
f the lobbyist, and political pow
er m
the sense oflegit1m
ate authonty, that 1s, the i:rrn-
dent o
f the U
nited States. B
oth the president o
f the U
nited States and the lobbyist exercise poht1C
al
pow
er, how
ever different its source and nature m
ay be.
3
5
3
4
P
olitical P
ow
er
too strong) or unnecessary (because it strength w
as used w
ith m
oderation) for
other nations to oppose it.
T
he political objective o
f m
ilitary preparations of any kind is to deter other
nations from
using m
ilitary force by m
aking it too risky for them
to do so. T
he
political aim
o
f m
ilitary preparations is, in other w
ords, to m
ake the actual appli-
cation o
f m
ilitary force unnecessary by inducing the prospective enem
y to desist
from
the use of m
ilitary force. T
he political objective o
fw
ar itself is not per se the
conquest of territory and the annihilation o
f enem
y arm
ies but a change in the
m
ind o
f the enem
y that w
ill m
ake him
yield to the w
ill o
f the victor.
T
herefore, w
henever econom
ic, financial, territorial, or m
ilitary policies are
under discussion in international affairs, it is necessary to distinguish betw
een, say,
econom
ic policies that are undertaken for their ow
n sake and econom
ic policies
that are the instrum
ents o
f a political policy-a policy, that is, w
hose econom
ic
purpose is but the m
eans to the end o
f controlling the policies o
f another nation.
T
he export policy o
f Sw
itzerland w
ith regard to the U
nited States falls into the
first category. T
he econom
ic policies o
f the Soviet U
nion w
ith regard to the
nations o
fE
astern E
urope fall into the latter category. So do m
any econom
ic poli-
cies o
f the U
nited States in L
atin A
m
erica, A
sia, and E
urope. T
he distinction is o
f
great practical im
portance, and the failure to m
ake it has led to m
uch confusion
in policy and public opinion.
An econom
ic, financial, territorial, or m
ilitary policy undertaken for its ow
n
sake is subject to evaluation in its ow
n term
s. Is it econom
ically or financially
advantageous? W
hat effects has acquisition o
f territory upon the population and
the econom
y o
f the nation acquiring it? W
hat are the consequences o
f a change
in a m
ilitary policy for education, population, and the dom
estic political system
?
T
he decisions w
ith respect to these policies are m
ade exclusively in term
s o
f such
intrinsic considerations.
W
hen, how
ever, the objectives o
f these policies serve to increase the pow
er
of the nation pursuing them
w
ith regard to other nations, these policies and their
objectives m
ust be judged prim
arily from
the point o
f view
o
f their contribution
to national pow
er. A
n econom
ic policy that cannot be justified in purely eco-
nom
ic term
s m
ight nevertheless be undertaken in view
o
f the political policy pur-
sued. T
he insecure and unprofitable character o
f a loan to a foreign nation m
ay
be a valid argum
ent against it on purely financial grounds. B
ut the argum
ent is
irrelevant if the loan, how
ever unw
ise it m
ay be from
a banker’s point o
f view
,
serves the political policies o
f the nation. It m
ay o
f course be that the econom
ic
or financial losses involved in such policies w
ill w
eaken the nation in its interna-
tional position to such an extent as to outw
eigh the political advantages to be
expected. O
n these grounds such policies m
ight be rejected. In such a case, w
hat
decides the issue is not purely econom
ic and financial considerations but a com
–
parison o
f the political chances and risks involved-that is, the probable effect o
f
these policies upon the pow
er o
f the nation.
W
hen the U
nited States provides loans or assistance to countries such as
Poland that lie in the shadow
o
f the R
ed A
rm
y, the purpose is not prim
arily eco-
nom
ic or financial. It is rather to enable such countries to m
ove tow
ard a degree
The D
epreciation o
f P
olitical P
ow
er
. fl
d
ow
er o
f the Soviet U
nion. If the repay-
of indepf~ndenct: ~
::i~
:n
u
:;:c
i:: o
; financial institutions is p~stponed w
ith
m
ent o
oans
1
h’
.
t £ r hum
anitarian or charitable reasons
U
l.S. goRva~~~:~~s ~
~
r:;a
~
tp~;i~~ ~oo ke:p open certain options foSr t~etgUovn~1ornn-
a one.
,
•
1
d
dence on the
ov1e
·
m
ent o
f Pola~d, options th~t pre;ent it; ~~::d ~~e;olitical objectives that in the
Such actions m
the econom
1~ sp
}r; ~r nd as a sovereign state-how
ever m
uch its
long ru~
:
~
~
s~
:l~
t~
~
:l ;:t~:~
0 m
a; ;orce it to accept the position o
f; s~tell~te
geog~ap
h
S viet U
nion at least in the short run. In a w
or , t e aim
w
ithm
the sphere o
ft . e
o 1·
d Poland is to lim
it Soviet influence . and
of A
m
erican econom
ic po icy tow
ar
h”
l
.
sing the leverage of the U
nited
pow
er in C
entral and E
astern E
urope w
I e m
crea
States in the area.
THE DEPRECIATION OF POLITICAL POW
ER
.
d.
.
· h.
1
nt of international poli-
T
he aspiration for pow
er bem
g the
1st_1~gu:s
m
g e em
~
olitics
W
hile
tic_s, as o~ all p
o
li\t’ intem
_ati~ni~ r:1
1:~:c~:c~f ;e;::;:a:~
~
:a~
rJfairs, i~ is fre-
th1s fact is genera y recogm
ze
f
h lars
publicists
and even states-
uently denied in the pronouncem
ents o
sc o
,
‘
.
h
W
. stem
q
s·
the end o
f the N
apoleonic W
ars, ever larger gro~ps m
t. e
le
m
en
.
m
ce
d d that the stru gle for pow
er on the m
tem
at1ona scene
w
orld have been persua e
h.
.
lg
.d nt that is bound to disappear once
.
phenom
enon a
1stonca acc1
e
.
.
d
1s a tem
porary.
.
. .’
•
· e to it have been ehm
m
ate
.
the peculiar hB1sto~c co;~
:tlo~
tta~t t~:v:o~;:~i~~n for colonies w
as at the root
T
hus Jerem
y
ent am
e_ ieve”
.
loniesl” w
as his advice to the
of all international. confl1c’.s.
Em
anflc~pate ydour co
uld .of necessity disappear.6
t
d m
tem
attonal con ict
an
w
ar w
o
.
h
govem
m
en s, an
h
C
bden7 and Proudhons w
ere convm
ced that t e
::~
::~
~
ti:~
:e
~::j:r:u~~a/:he ;nl~g~~~~~~o~;;rt~~11 ;s~~:a~!e:r::~~~~::7e:~
neut harm
ony am
ong nations an
m
t
fu
I
t·
,, said C
obden
“w
e m
ay
r .
lt
ther
“A
t som
e
ture e ec 10n,
‘
nationa l po JtlC
S
a oge
.
.
r . ‘
r d to those w
ho offer to becom
e
probably see the test ‘no fore1g~ po 1~1cs,,/f p l~arx and his follow
ers, capitalism
the representativ~s of fre~ co~s~~uen~1es. d o:r T
hey m
aintain that international
1
~~ ~
::;~
:~
::h
e ~
st:~
gl:~
or;o~
er on the international scene and
.
C
l
·
(L
don· R
obert H
ew
ard, 1830).
b
.
6Em
anapate Your
onzis
on b
.l.na dow
n the barriers that separate nations; those
arners,
7″Free trade! W
hat 1s 1t. W
hf,
rea a
;,cl
h tr cl
and jealousy w
hich every now
and then
behind w
hich nestle the feelings o
f p
n
e, rev_enge’. hable ‘cl,, “Free trade is the international law
o
f
.
cl
cl cl I ae w
hole countnes w
it
oo ·
ch
by
burst their boun s, an
e llo
b
“one and the sam
e cause.” See Spee
es
the A
lm
ighty,” and free trade anti p
ea~
:;i)~
~
~
I ep. 79· Political W
ritings (N
ew
Y
ork: D
. A
ppleton,
Richard Cobden (L
ondon: M
acfm
At
w
l ,
t · H
enry A
shw
orth, quoted in John M
orley, Life o
f
12 1842
0
1867), V
ol. II, p. 110; letter o
pn
,
‘
154
Richard Cobden (B
oston: _R
oberts Bhrothlel_rs, 188})~:-peop. les w
ill thus be declared, their solidarity rec-
8″L
ress the tanffs and t
e a Janee o
e
l I
248
e_t uds suhpl;
l”ty
ro~laim
ed.” O
euvres com
pletes (Paris, 1867), V
o . ‘ p.
.
ogm
ze
t
e1r equa 1
P
· h L”b
z·
195
9 r,.
cl’ .
A
C
F B
ales
A
Short H
istory o
fEnglzs
z era zsm
, p.
.
‘-<.Yote
1n
.
.
•
e
,
3
6
P
olitical P
ow
er w
ill bring about perm
~n~nt peace. D
uring the nineteenth centm
y liberals every-
w
here shared the conv1ct10n that pow
er politics and w
ar w
ere residues o
fan obso-
lete system
o
f governm
ent and that the victory o
f dem
ocracy and constitutional
~overnm
ent over absolutism
and autocracy w
ould assure the victory o
f interna-
tional harm
ony and perm
anent peace over pow
er politics and w
ar. O
f this liberal
school o
f thought, W
oodrow
W
ilson w
as the m
ost eloquent and m
ost influential
spokesm
an.
In recent tim
es the conviction that the struggle for pow
er can be elim
inated
~r?m
the international scene has been connected w
ith the great attem
pts at organ-
1zm
g the w
orld, such as the L
eague o
f N
ations and the U
nited N
ations. T
hus
C
ordell H
ull, then U
.S. secretary o
fstate, declared in 1943 on his return from
the
M
oscow
C
onference, w
hich laid the groundw
ork for the U
nited N
ations, that the
new
international organization w
ould m
ean the end o
f pow
er politics and usher
in a new
era o
f international collaboration. 10 M
r. Philip N
oel-B
aker, then B
ritish
m
inister o
fstate, declared in 1946 in the H
ouse o
fC
om
m
ons that the B
ritish gov-
ernm
ent w
as “determ
ined to use the institutions o
f the U
nited N
ations to kill
pow
er politics, in order that, by the m
ethods o
fdem
ocracy, the w
ill o
fthe people
shall prevail.”
11
W
hile w
e shall have m
ore to say later about these theories and the expecta-
12
tions d_eriv~d from
them
,
it is sufficient to state that the struggle for pow
er is uni-
versal m
tim
e and space and is an undeniable fact o
f experience. It cannot be
denied t~~t throughout historical tim
e, regardless o
fsocial, econom
ic, and politi-
cal cond1tto-:1s, states have m
et each other in contests for pow
er. E
ven though
anthropologists have show
n that certain prim
itive peoples seem
to be free from
the desire for pow
er, nobody has yet show
n how
their state o
fm
ind and the con-
ditions under w
hich they live can be re-created o
n
a w
orldw
ide scale so as to elim
–
inate the struggle for pow
er from
the international scene. 13 It w
ould be useless and
even self-destructive to free one or the other o
f the peoples o
f the earth from
the
desire for pow
er w
hile leaving it extant in others. If the desire for pow
er cannot
be abolished everyw
here in the w
orld, those w
ho m
ight be cured w
ould sim
ply
fall victim
s to the pow
er o
f others.
T
he position taken here m
ight be criticized on the ground that conclusions
draw
n from
the past are unconvincing and that to draw
such conclusions has
alw
ays
been the m
ain stock in trade o
f the enem
ies o
f progress and reform
.
T
hough it is true that certain social arrangem
ents and institutions have alw
ays
existed in the past, it does not necessarily follow
that they m
ust alw
ays exist in the
future. T
he situation is, how
ever, different w
hen w
e deal not w
ith social arrange-
m
ents and institutions created by m
an but w
ith those elem
ental biopsychological
drives by w
hich in tum
society is created. T
he drives to live, to propagate, and
10N
ew
iork Tim
es, N
ovem
ber 19, 1943, p. 1.
11H
ouse o
fC
om
m
ons D
ebates (Fifth Series, 1946), V
ol. 419, p. 1262.
12See Part E
ight.
13 For an illum
inating discussion o
f this problem
, see M
alcolm
Sharp, “A
ggression: A
Study o
f V
alues
and Law
,” Ethics, V
ol. 57, N
o. 4, Part II (July 1947).
The D
epreciation o
f P
olitical P
ow
er
37
to dom
inate are com
m
on to all m
en. 14 T
heir relative strength is dependent upon
· I conditions that m
ay favor one drive and tend to repress another or that m
ay
socia
.
.
.
d .
h’l
h
w
ithhold social approval from
certam
m
am
festat1ons o
f these
nves w
1 e t
ey
encourage others. T
hus, to take exam
ples only from
the sp?e:e o
f ~ow
er, m
ost
societies condem
n killing as a m
eans o
f attaining pow
er w
1thm
sooety,_ but all
cieties encourage the killing o
f enem
ies in that struggle for pow
er that 1s ~ailed
~:ar. D
ictators look askance at the aspirations for political i::ow
er am
ong :~etr fel-
low
citizens, but dem
ocracies consider active participation 1~ th~ com
petition f~r
political pow
er a civic duty. W
here a ~onopolis~ic orgam
zat10~ o
f econ~1:11c
activities exists, com
petition for econom
ic pow
er 1s absent, and m
_com
pet1t1ve
econom
ic system
s certain m
anifestations o
f the strugg~e for _econom
ic pow
~r are
outlaw
ed w
hile others are encouraged. O
strogorsky, m
vokm
g the authonty .~
f
T
ocqueville, states that “the passions o
f the A
m
eric~n. people_ are_ not o
f a poht1-
cal, but o
f a com
m
ercial, nature. In that w
orld aw
a1tm
g cult1vat1on, the love o
f
.
l
h
h’
“ls
pow
er aim
s
ess at m
en t
an at t
m
gs.
. .
. .
.
R
egardless o
fparticular social cond1t10ns, the dec1S1ve ar~um
ent aga:nst ~he
opinion that the struggle for pow
er on the internation~l scen_e_1s a m
ere h1stoncal
accident m
ust be derived from
the nature o
f dom
estic politics. T
he esse1:ce o
f
international politics is identical w
ith its dom
estic counterpart. B
oth d_om
est1c and
international politics are a struggle for pow
er, m
odified onlY_ by the_ d1ffer~nt con-
ditions under w
hich this struggle takes place in the dom
estic and m
the m
terna-
tional spheres.
T
he tendency to dom
inate, in particular, is an elem
ent o
f all hum
an asso-
ciations, from
the fam
ily, through fraternal and professional associations and
local political organizations, to the state. O
n
the fam
ily level, the typical con-
flict betw
een the m
other-in-law
and her child’s spouse is in its essence a strug-
gle for pow
er, the defense o
f an established pow
er positi?n against ~he atte:npt
to establish a new
one. A
s such it foreshadow
s the conflict on the m
ternatlon-
al scene betw
een the policies o
f the status quo and the policies o
f im
perialism
.
Social clubs, fraternities, faculties, and business organizations are scenes o
f
continuous struggles for pow
er betw
een groups that either w
ant
keep w
hat
pow
er they already have or seek to attain great~r pow
er. C
om
pet1t1ve contests
betw
een business enterprises, as w
ell as labor disputes betw
een em
ployers and
em
ployees, are frequently fought not only, and som
etim
es not even prim
arily,
for econom
ic advantages but for control over each other and over others-that
is, for pow
er. Finally, the w
hole politica~ life o
f a na_tion, pa~ticularly o
f a dem
–
ocratic nation from
the local to the nat10nal level, 1s a contm
uous struggle for
pow
er. In pe;iodic elections, in voting in legislative assem
blies, in law
suits
I4Z
oologists have tried to show
that the drive to dom
inate is found even i1_1 _anim
als, s~ch as chickens
and m
onkeys, w
ho create social hierarchies on t~e basis o
f \~1ll and the ~b1hty to dom
inate. See, e_.g.,
W
arder A
llee, A
nim
al Life and Social G
rowth (B
altim
ore: W
illiam
s a1:d W
ilkens, 1932), and The Soaal
Life efA
nim
als (N
ew
Y
ork: W
. W
. N
orton, 1938). C
f. also the theones of K
onrad L
orenz and the
controversies concerning them
.
.
15JvI. O
strogorsky, D
em
ocra91 and the O
rganization o
fPolitical Parties (N
ew
Y
ork: M
acm
illan, 1902),
V
ol. II, p. 592.
3
8
P
olitical P
ow
er before courts, in adm
inistrative decisions and executive m
easures-in all these
activities m
en try to m
aintain or to establish their pow
er over other m
en. T
he
processes by w
hich legislative, judicial, executive, and adm
inistrative decisions
are_ reached are subject to pressures and counterpressures by “pressure groups”
trym
g to defend and expand their positions o
f pow
er. A
s one o
f the D
ead Sea
Scrolls puts it:
W
hat nation likes to be oppressed by a stronger pow
er? O
r w
ho w
ants his
property plundered unjustly? Yet, is there a single nation that has not
oppressed its neighbour? O
r w
here in the w
orld w
ill you find a people that
has not plundered the property of another? \V
here indeed?
.
.
“O
f the gods w
e know
,” to quote T
hucydides, “and o
f m
en w
e believe, that
It 1s a necessary law
o
f their nature that they rule w
herever they can.”16 O
r, as
T
olstoy put it, “the very process o
f dom
inating another’s w
ill w
as in itself a pleas-
ure, a habit, and a necessity to D
6lokhov.” 17
A
nd in the w
ords o
fJohn o
f Salisbury:
T
hough it_is not given t? all m
en to seize princely or royal pow
er, yet the
m
an w
ho 1s w
holly untam
ted by tyranny is rare or nonexistent. In com
m
on
speech the tyrant is one w
ho oppresses a w
hole people by a rulership based
on force; and yet it is not over a people as a w
hole that a m
an can play the
tyrant, but he can do so if he w
ill even in the m
eanest station. For if not over
the w
hole body of the people, still each m
an w
ill lord it as far as his pow
er
extends. 18
In view
o
f this ubiquity o
f the struggle for pow
er in all social relations
a_nd _on all level_s o
f social organization, is it surprising that international poli-
tics 1s o
f necessity pow
er politics? A
nd w
ould it not be rather surprising if the
struggle for pow
er w
ere but an accidental and ephem
eral attribute o
f interna-
tional politics w
hen it is a perm
anent and necessary elem
ent o
f all branches o
f
dom
estic politics?
ROOTS OF TIU DEPRECIATIOPJ Of Pf!llUflCIU
T
he depreciatio~ o
f the r?le pow
er plays on the international scene grow
s from
tw
o roots. O
ne 1s the philosophy o
f international relations that dom
inated the
better part o
f the nineteenth century and still holds sw
ay over m
uch o
four think-
ing on international affairs. T
he other is the particular political and intellectual cir-
cum
stances that have determ
ined the relations o
f the U
nited States o
fA
m
erica to
the rest o
f the w
orld.
16T
hucydides, B
ook V, § 105.
17L
eo T
olstoy, W
ar and Peace, B
ook E
ight, C
hapter X
L
18 John o
f Salisbury, Policratictts, translated by John D
ickinson (N
ew
Y
ork: A
lfred A
. K
nopf, 1927),
V
ol. V
II, p. 17.
Two R
oots of the D
epreciation o
f P
olitical P
ow
er
39
N
ineteenth=C
enturv Philosophy
T
he nineteenth century w
as led to its depreciation o
f pow
er politics by its ~o~es-
tic experience. T
he distinctive characteristic o
f this experience w
as the dom
m
at1on
o
f the m
iddle classes by the aristocracy. B
y identifying this dom
ination w
ith polit-
ical dom
ination o
f any kind, the political philosophy of the nineteenth century
cam
e to identify the opposition to aristocratic politics w
ith hostility to any kind
o
f politics. A
fter the defeat of aristocratic governm
ent, the n:1i?dle cl~s~~s d~vel-
oped a system
o
f indirect dom
ination. T
hey replaced the trad1t10nal d1v1s1?n m
to
the governing and the governed classes, and the m
ilitary m
ethod o
fop~n v10lence
characteristic o
f aristocratic rule, w
ith the invisible chains o
f econom
IC
depend-
ence. T
his econom
ic system
operated through a netw
ork o
f seem
ingly equalitari-
an legal rules that concealed the very existence o
fpow
er relations. T
he nineteenth
century w
as unable to see the political nature o
f these legalized relations. T
hey
seem
ed to be essentially different from
w
hat had gone, so far, under the nam
e o
f
politics. T
herefore politics in its aristocratic-that is, open_ ~nd violent-:form
w
as
identified w
ith politics as such. T
he struggle, then, for political pow
er-m
dom
es-
tic as w
ell as in international affairs-appeared to be only a historical accident,
coincident w
ith autocratic governm
ent and bound to disappear w
ith the disap-
pearance o
f autocratic governm
ent.
The Am
erican EHperjence
This identification o
f pow
er politics w
ith aristocratic governm
ent found support
in the A
m
erican experience. It can be traced to three elem
ents in that experience:
the uniqueness o
f the A
m
erican experim
ent, the actual isolation of the A
m
erican
continent from
centers of the w
orld conflict during the nineteenth century, and
the hum
anitarian pacifism
and anti-im
perialism
o
f A
m
erican political ideology.
T
hat the severance o
f constitutional ties w
ith the B
ritish C
row
n w
as m
eant
to signify the initiation o
f an A
m
erican foreign policy distinct from
w
hat w
ent
under the nam
e o
f foreign policy in E
urope is clearly stated in W
ashington’s
Farew
ell A
ddress: “E
urope has a set o
f prim
ary interests, w
hich to us have none,
or a very rem
ote relation. H
ence she m
ust be engaged in frequent controversies,
the causes o
f w
hich are essentially foreign to our concerns. H
ence, therefore, it
m
ust be unw
ise in us to im
plicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicis-
situdes o
f her politics, or the ordinary com
binations and collisions o
f her friend-
ships or enm
ities.” In 1796, E
uropean politics and pow
er politics w
ere identical;
there w
as no other pow
er politics but the one engaged in by the princes o
fE
urope.
“T
he toils o
f E
uropean am
bition, rivalship, interest, hum
or or caprice” w
ere the
only m
anifestations o
f the international struggle for pow
er before the ~yes o
f
A
m
erica. T
he retreat from
E
uropean politics, as proclaim
ed by W
ashm
gton,
could, therefore, be taken to m
ean retreat from
pow
er politics as such.
Y
et A
m
erican aloofness from
the E
uropean tradition of pow
er politics w
as
m
ore than a political program
. C
ertain sporadic exceptions notw
ithstanding, it
w
as an established political fact until the end o
f the nineteenth century. T
his
4
0
P
olitical P
ow
er fact w
as a result o
f deliberate choice
a
11
.
.
geography. Popular w
riters m
ight
‘.
shw
e
~s o
f the ob1ect1v: conditions o
f
position the hand o
f G
od
h. sheehm
dt e uniiqueness o
f A
m
enca’s geographic
.
, w
ic
a
una terably p
·b d
h
A
m
encan expansion as w
ell
·
l
.
B
rescn e
t e course o
f
as iso at10n
ut m
ore
‘bl
b
W
ashington on, have been careful to e
~
ha .
resp~ns1
_e o servers, from
conditions and a foreign pol1·c
h
. p
. size tdhe _con1unct10n o
f geographic
.
y
C
oosm
g Its en s
Ill th r h
f
usm
g geographic conditions to attain those
d
W
.
h. e
ig
t o
geography,
detac~ed and distant situation” and asked· ‘~
~
–
f. as
m
gton referred to “our
peculiar a situation?” W
h
h.
.
·
Y
orego the advantages o
f so
·
en t is penod o
f A
m
erican f.
·
1·
d
close, John B
right w
rote to A
lfi
d L
“
O
ore1gn po icy
rew
to a
.
re
ove:
n your co
f
t
h
grow
m
g m
illions m
ay henceforth know
nothin
f n m
en
w
e m
ay
of’.e your
and you
are
anxious
to abstain fro
.
. g o
:,var. N
one can assail you;
nations.”19
m
m
m
glm
g W
ith
the
quarrels
o
f other
From
the shores o
f the N
th A
m
·
.
W
orld w
atched
the st
or
I
encan c?ntm
ent, the citizens o
f the N
ew
range
spectac e o
f the
m
t
·
l
unfolding on the distant shores o
f E
uro
A
fi .
ernat10~a
s~ruggle
for pow
er
part o
f the nineteenth century th . f.
_pe,
/1ca, and A
sia. Sm
ee for the better
o
f spectators, w
hat w
as actuallye~
~
eo~
:::to/cy ena?led t~em
_ to retain the role
appeared to A
m
ericans as a
er
?. a passm
g h1stoncal constellation
ordained. A
t w
orst they w
opuldm
anet~t cond1t10n, self-chosen as w
ell as naturally
con m
ue to w
atch th
f
• .
~layed by others. At best the tim
e w
as close at hand ” /
g
a~
~
pow
er poht1es
hshed everyw
here, the final curtain w
ould fall and :hen, w
it
fem
ocracy es_t~b-
w
ould no longer be played.
e gam
e
O
pow
er politics
To
aid in the achievem
ent
f
h.
l
A
m
erica’s m
ission. T
hrou hout
o
t_ is’ go~
w
as
conce!ved
to
be part o
f
~~:~:da(:~::i~~s:
:~
~
::!::to
o
~
h
;::t:i:i:it~::;z1
:t:rt::i:~
~
:;;:s~
e~
ft~
~
:
cal philosophy o
fJohn C
C
ffess1v~, ~bstenti~m
st form
ulation, as in the politi-
tic liberty. T
hus w
e m
ay .”d a
oun, 1t is conce1_ved as the prom
otion o
f dom
es-
.
o m
ore to extend liberty b
I
.
contm
ent and the w
orld generally, than w
ould b
d
y
o
u
r exam
p e ?ver_th1s
W
hen the U
nited States
1·n th
I
f
h
e _one by a thousand v1etones.”
,
e w
a,e o
t e Spam
sh-A
·
w
,
desert
this
anti-im
perialist and
d
.
.d
l
m
encan w
ar, seem
ed to
.
em
ocrat1c
1 ea
W
ill’
G
h
s
restated Its
essence·
“Expans1·on
d
.
. 1·
‘
1am
ra
am
um
ner
·
an
1m
pena ism
are a
d
I
h
dem
ocracy … expansion and 1·
. 1·
.
gran
ons aug
t on
.
.
m
pena ism
are at w
ar w
ith th
b
d’ ·
pnnc1ples, and interests o
f the A
m
erican people “20 C
. e
~st tra 1t101:1s,
o
f E
uropean pow
er politics w
ith the ideals o
f th.e A
m
o1;1panng dt. _e tendencies
~~ot~1~;:v!~h ~
::~
e
h
:::~
~
t~
;t~~ats!~t~~::~: iit~
:~
~
~
i~
~
~
~
?it1:~
::;~
:;
irrevocably com
m
itted A
m
erica to the
h
pam
s
–
m
encan W
ar
in revolution and w
ar.
sam
e course t at w
as engulfing E
urope
19Q
uoted in M
erle C
urti Peace and \¼
r· Th
A
•
S
C
om
pany, 1936), p. 122:
·
e
m
encan
truggle 1636-1936 (N
ew
Y
ork: W
W
N
orton,
20<'The C
onquest o
f the U
nited States b
S ain,, E
..
Y
ale U
niversity Press, 1940), V
ol. II, p. i9S: ‘
ssays ofW
zlbam
G
raham
Sum
ner (N
ew
H
aven, C
T
:
The S
cience o
f P
eace: C
ontem
porary U
topianism
41
T
hus the general conception the nineteenth century had form
ed o
f the
nature of foreign affairs com
bined w
ith specific elem
ents in the A
m
erican experi-
ence to create the belief that involvem
ent in pow
er politics is not inevitable but
only a historical accident, and that nations have a choice betw
een pow
er politics
and other kinds o
f foreign policy not tainted by the desire for pow
er.
THE SCIENCE OF PEACE: CONTEM
PORARY UTOPIANISM
A
w
ord should be said about a school o
f thought-still influential in political and
intellectual circles today-that proffers a “scientific” alternative to the “perennial
w
isdom
” o
f a rationalist approach to international politics. This school o
f thought
w
e m
ay call “scientific utopianism
” for lack of a better term
; like the sources o
f
self-deception as to the persistence o
f political pow
er discussed above, the scien-
tific interpretation has strong roots in nineteenth-century experience, both in
E
urope and in A
m
erica. In this case, how
ever, neither the relations o
f class dom
–
ination nor geographical accident gave rise to utopian hopes for a “science o
f
peace.” Instead, the fantastic progress o
f the natural sciences led various thinkers
to assum
e that the sam
e kinds o
f m
ethods, applied to individual and collective
hum
an behavior, could yield progress tow
ard w
hat H
erbert M
arcuse and others
have called “the pacification o
f hum
an existence.”
T
he m
odern science o
f peace starts from
the assum
ption that the w
orld is
thoroughly accessible to science and reason and that it contains in itself all the ele-
m
ents necessary for the harm
onious cooperation o
f all m
ankind. It is for science
to detect those elem
ents, variously defined as harm
ony of interests, law
s o
f eco-
nom
ics, free trade, and m
odern com
m
unications; it is for law
to apply them
w
here
they do not prevail spontaneously; and it is for negotiation and com
prom
ise to
discover them
under the surface o
f apparent conflict.
For such rationalism
it is the atavism
o
f pow
er politics that conceals and dis-
torts the harm
ony of interests that is the true nature of international relations.
A
dam
Sm
ith, a founding father of classical liberalism
, as w
ell as of classical econom
–
ics, discovered such a fundam
ental harm
ony of interests lying beneath the surface
m
anifestations o
f self-regarding, com
petitive econom
ic behavior. Selfish pursuits led
to greater w
ealth for all through the w
orkings of an “invisible hand.” G
overned by
an inner logic, the free m
arket operates to dispose all for the best. N
ineteenth-
century liberalism
had no use for even such residual traces of the m
iraculous in its
search for a m
eans to establish harm
onious relations am
ong states. O
nly strictly
rational principles w
ould do; all international conflicts w
ere considered capable of
satisfact01y solutions, either through com
prom
ise or arbitration. Since all m
en
partake o
f reason, they m
ust sooner or later m
eet on that com
m
on ground, dis-
covering that their conflicts are apparent rather than real and can all be solved by
a rational form
ula acceptable to all. W
ere all nations at all tim
es fully aw
are of their
real interests, they w
ould realize that apparently opposing interests are actually
identical, that w
hat is good for one country is of necessity good for all other coun-
tries, and that conflict is m
erely the product of ignorance and error.
4
2
Political P
ow
er
C
onflicts am
ong nations are due, then, to m
aladjustm
ents arising from
!ack o
f understandi~g and to the influence o
f political passions. E
xcept for
1gnora_nce and em
_ot10n, reason w
ould solve international conflicts as easily and
as
rationally as
1t
has
solved
so
m
any problem
s in
the
natural
sciences.
P
roudhon w
as am
ong the first to glorify the blessings o
f science in the inter-
national field:
7:ruth is everyw
here identical w
ith itself: science represents the unity o
f m
an-
kind. If therefore science, instead o
f religion or authority, is taken in each
country as social norm
, the sovereign arbiter of interests, w
ith the governm
ent
am
~unti~g to nothing, all the law
s of the universe w
ill be in harm
ony.
N
ationality or fatherland w
ill no longer exist in the political m
eaning o
f the
term
;_ there w
ill only be birthplaces. M
an, o
f w
hatever race or colour he m
ay
be, “‘.ill actually be a native o
f the U
niverse; the right o
f citizenship he w
ill
acqurre everyw
here. In the sam
e w
ay in w
hich in a certain district of the
national territory the m
unicipality represents the nation and exercises its
authority, each nation of the globe w
ill represent hum
anity and in its natural
boundaries act for it. H
arm
ony w
ill reign am
ong the nations, w
ithout diplo-
m
acy nor council; nothing shall from
now
on disturb it.21
“T
he duty o
fthe pacifist,” according to C
.E
.M
. Joad, “is above all things to be rea-
sonable. H
e should, that is to say, rely on the use o
fhis ow
n reason in m
aking his
appeal and he should assum
e that other m
en m
ay be brought to use theirs….
T
ruth, in fact, w
ill w
in out, ifpeople are only given a sufficient chance to find it.”22
It w
as w
ith the sam
e confidence in the pow
er o
freason that C
larence Streit assert-
ed in 1941
that “the really big m
en in the U
nited States Senate and B
ritish
Parliam
ent w
ill cham
pion the U
nion [o
f the tw
o countries] once they understand
it.”23
‘
_Pol~tical hist~ry, then, becom
es a succession o
fscientific problem
s capable
?f sc1e_nt1fic
solut1~
n-but m
ost unreasonably handled by an
ignorant and
1m
pass1?ned hu_m
arnty. ~ven for so realistic an observer as H
om
er L
ea, the prob-
lem
o
f m
ternat10nal affa1rs resolved itself into a problem
o
f know
ledge; if the
“~alour o
f ignorance” is replaced by the know
ledge o
f the pertinent facts, m
an
w
ill be able to act successfully o
n
the international scene. ‘
T
he tim
e can and w
ill
com
e;” w
rote the fam
ous pacifist B
ertha von Suttner, “w
hen the science o
f
poli~ics w
ill ha~e-replaced present-day statecraft, w
hen only those w
iH
have leg-
1Slat1ve and political P
?w
er … w
ho sincerely seek only the truth and through
the truth stnve to attam
only the good-the universal good com
prehending all
civilized nations.”
21 “Idee generale de la revolution au dix-neuviem
e siecle,” O
euvres com
pletes, IX
(1868), p. 300; see also
Proudhon, La G
uerre et la paix (Paris: E. D
entu, 1861).
22<'Pacifism
: Its Personal and Social Im
plications,” in G
. P. G
ooch, In Pursuit o
fPeace (L
ondon:
M
ethuen, 1933), pp. 61, 63.
23 U
nion N
ow
w
ith Britain (N
ew
Y
ork: H
arper and B
rothers, 1941), p. 197.
The S
cience of P
eace: C
ontem
porary U
topianism
43
T
he tim
e S
uttner spoke o
f has already arrived as far as the m
ere posses-
sion o
f know
ledge is concerned, according to R
obert S. L
ynd. “T
he diagnosis,”
he w
rote,
is already fairly com
plete, thanks to a long list o
f com
petent studies of
nationalism
, im
perialism
, international finance and trade, and other factors
w
ithin our culture that encourage w
ar. T
he problem
of w
ar, m
ore than m
ost
others, has engaged the attention o
f scientists from
several disciplines, and
the dissection has proceeded to the point w
here fairly unequivocal know
l-
edge exists. T
he causes of w
ar are know
n and accepted by a w
ide group o
f
thoughtful students. B
ut the statem
ent of w
hat is to be done languishes
because social science shrinks from
resolving the austere findings of scholarly
m
onographs into a bold program
m
e for action …. In the case o
f an issue
like this, w
here the problem
does not arise from
lack of know
ledge, w
hat
social science appears to need is the w
ill to m
ass its findings so that the truth
they hold w
ill not continue to trickle aw
ay as disparate bits of s~holarsh_ip.
W
e know
enough about w
ar and its causes to present these findm
gs, pom
t
their m
eanings, and propose action in a w
ay that w
ill hold this dam
aging
evidence steadily and authoritatively before the eyes of the hum
blest
citizen. 24
It w
as for this A
ge o
f R
eason to replace the old m
ethods o
f pow
er politics,
secret diplom
acy, and w
ar by a new
, scientific approach. T
erritorial claim
s, sover-
eignty over national m
inqrities, the distribution o
f raw
m
aterials, the struggle for
m
arkets, disarm
am
ent, the relation betw
een the “haves” and the “have-nots,”
peaceful change, and the peaceful organization_ o
f the w
orld in gen~ral-these are
not “political” problem
s, to be solved tem
poranl? and al_ways prec~nousl~ accord-
ing to the distribution o
f pow
er am
ong quarrelm
g nat10ns and its possible bal-
ance. T
hey are “technical” problem
s for w
hich reason w
ill find the one correct
solution in each case.
T
hus the nineteenth century developed a “science o
f peace” as a separate
branch o
f scientific know
ledge. Scores o
f books w
ere published bearing this title.
O
ne even received first prize in a scholarly com
petition. 25 T
he concept o~ a “~at-
ural frontier” -w
hich had had a strategical and political, but not a sc1ent1fic,
connotation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-w
as construed by the
French revolutionaries and N
apoleon in the sense o
f a geographically “correct”
frontier. In the seventies and eighties o
f the nineteenth century, public opinion
in G
reat B
ritain discussed seriously the problem
o
f the “scientific frontier,” that
is
a frontier that corresponds to reason and that, consequently, m
akes all other
fr~ntiers in this geographical region scientifically incorrect. In his speech at
M
ansion H
ouse on N
ovem
ber 9, 1878, D
israeli justified the Second A
fghan W
ar
by saying that the frontier oflndia w
as “a haphazard and not a scientific one.”
24K
now
ledge.for W
hat? (Princeton: Princeton U
niversity Press, 1939), p. 241.
25L
ouis B
ara, La Science de la paix (1872).
44
Political P
ow
er
.
T
he search for such a “scientific” frontier started in the second half o
f the
eighteenth century w
hen, on the occasion o
f partitions and annexations o
f terri-
tory, the relative value o
f the pieces o
f territory to be distributed w
as determ
ined
on the basis ?f certain “o~jective” standards, such .is fertility, num
ber and quali-
ty o
fpopul~t10n, and the l:ke. Follow
ing this trend the C
ongress o
fV
ienna, upon
the suggestion o
f M
etterm
ch, appointed a special statistical com
m
ission· it w
as
charged w
ith evaluati~g the territories under discussion by the “objectiv;” stan-
dard o
f num
ber, _quality, and type o
fpopulations. 26 T
he delim
itation o
f territory
thus beca~e a land o
f m
athem
atical exercise. T
he idea o
f the “good frontier,”
develo~e? m
t~e l~st de~ad~s o
f the nineteenth century in G
erm
any w
ith regard
to R
ussia s terntonal aspirat10ns, had a som
ew
hat sim
ilar connotation. T
he idea
?f t~e “scientific _tariff” attem
pted to introduce science into foreign trade, build-
m
g m
part upon ideas put forth in the early nineteenth century by Friedrich List.
~he theory an~ pra~tice o
f international plebiscites are also typical m
anifesta-
tions o
f the rat10nahst approach to international problem
s· here the w
ill o
f the
m
ajority i~ the scientific _te~t according to w
hich sovereign; over territory is to
be determ
m
ed. In the thirties, M
ajor L
efebure advanced his theories on “scien-
tific di~ar~am
ent._” “G
eopolitics” endeavoured to put foreign policy as a w
hole
on a sc1ent1fic basis.
It w
as onl_r a~ter the Firs~ :<7orld W
ar that this tendency to reduce political
proble1:ns to. ~c1ent1fic propos1t10ns w
on general acceptance. “R
eason is at last
becom
m
g an m
depende~t ~gency,” w
rote L
ord A
llen ofH
artw
ood, “influencing
the conduct o
f m
en. T
his 1s due to the com
ing o
f science…. Feeling him
self
now
to be _t~e m
aster o
f nature, his m
ind is beginning to w
ork rationally instead
o
f supers_t1t10usly.
W
he~
form
ing an
opinion he observes
the phenom
ena
aro~nd him
and draw
s his ~onclusions. From
that m
om
ent m
ind begins to be
an m
dependent agency o
f m
fluence. It can now
therefore be considered as a
p_ol_i’.ical_ force, w
~ereas that has never previously been possible in the history o
f
C1V
1hzat10n.
D
urm
g the last thirty years this has
begun to influence public
opinion.”
27
.
T
hus _began w
~at can properly be called the age o
f the scientific approach
to m
ternatlonal affam
, and the end is not yet in sight. Preceded by the H
ague
C
onferences and hundreds o
f sm
aller peace congresses, governm
ents them
–
selves em
barked on a program
o
f feverish activity unprecedented in recorded
~istory, w
ith the purpose o
f solving all international problem
s through scien-
t~fic ~
ethods. T
he go’:ernm
en~s,_ th~ L
eague o
f N
ations, and private groups
vied ‘:”1th one another m
orgam
zm
g m
ternational conferences, in encouraging
teachm
g and research, and in publishing hundreds o
f volum
es to cure the ills
o
f hum
anity in a scientific w
ay. W
e have recently w
itnessed w
idespread efforts
to find a scientific solution for the problem
s o
f the postw
ar w
orld. T
hese are
26 For details see C
harles D
upuis, Le Principe d’equilibre et le Concert Europeen (Paris: Perrin et C
ie, 1909),
pp. 38 ff, 60 ff.
27 “Pacifism
: Its M
eaning and Its T
ask,” in Pursuit o
fPeace, pp. 22, 23.
The S
cience o
f P
eace: C
ontem
porary U
topianism
4
5
the latest, but probably not the last, m
anifestation o
f this m
odern intellectual
trend. 28
.
O
ur arre is forever searching for the philosophers’ stone, the m
agic form
ula,
w
hich, m
echanically applied, w
ill produce the desired r~sult and t~us substitute
for the uncertainties and risks o
f political action the certitude ?f r~tlonal c~cula-
tion. H
ow
ever, w
hat the seekers after the m
agic fo~m
ula v.:ant _is sim
~le, rational,
m
echanical; w
hat they have to deal w
ith is com
plicated, m
ational, m
calculable.
A
s a consequence they are com
pelled, in order to present at leas~ ~he sem
blance
of scientific solutions, to sim
plify the reality o
f international politics and to rely
upon w
hat one m
ight call the “m
ethod o
f the single cause.”
.
T
he abolition o
f w
ar is obviously the fundam
ental problem
confrontm
g
international thought. To solve the problem
one m
ust clearly first deter1:1ine ~ts
cause or causes. W
hat m
akes a solution appear so difficult for the nonrat10nahst
m
ind is the variety o
f causes involved-causes that have their roots in the in_ner-
m
ost recesses of the hum
an heart. W
ere it possible to reduce all those m
ultiple,
com
plex factors to a single cause-one capable of rational form
ulation-the solu-
tion o
f the problem
o
f w
ar w
ould no longer seem
im
possible. Thi~ is w
hat liberal
foreign policy has been trying to do since its very inception; and sm
~e the heyda?’
of the League o
f N
ations m
ost people w
ould take it for lack o
f creative thought 1f
a statesm
an or a political thinker did not have a “constructive” plan as a rem
edy
for the “single cause.”
.
.
A
re not the rem
nants o
f feudalism
the great single cause m
aking for w
ar m
this w
orld? Let us do aw
ay w
ith aristocratic governm
ent everyw
here, the classical
liberals w
ould say, and w
e w
ill have peace. In practical politics this general propo-
sition w
as frequently narrow
ed dow
n to m
ore special rem
edies inten~ed to ?1eet
particular situations. T
hus, as w
e have seen, B
entham
and the B
entham
1tes pom
_ted
to the struggle for colonies as the m
ain cause for w
ar; they advocated abstention
from
colonial policy as a rem
edy for w
ar. For others tariffs w
ere the source o
f all
evils in the international sphere; to them
free trade w
as the source of all good.
O
thers w
ould abolish secret treaties and secret diplom
acy in general and, through
popular control o
f international policies, secure peace. Is not m
_od_ern w
ar an out-
grow
th o
f im
perialism
, w
hich, in turn, is a result o
f the contrad1ct1ons of m
onop-
oly capitalism
? H
ence, let us do aw
ay w
ith capitalism
, the M
arxists w
ould say, and
w
e w
ill no longer have w
ar: socialism
is peace.
28C
f. C
harles A
. B
eard, A
Foreign Poliry far Am
erica (N
ew
Y
ork: A
lfred A. K
nopf, 1940), pp. 98:-99:
“In line w
ith the new
interests, the study o
f international law
and diplom
acy w
as encouraged m
institutions oflearning. O
ld-fashioned courses o
n
diplom
acy-cold, scholarly rerform
ances-w
ere
supplem
ented by courses o
n
international relations, i’: w
hich em
i:hasis w
as laid 01; w
orld pe~ce and
the m
eans o
f prom
oting it. B
ooks, pam
phlets, and articles on pacification w
ere w
naen, published,
and w
idely circulated, often w
ith the aid o
f subventions from
peace funds. International peace con-
ferences w
ere organized and provided opportunities for travel and exte~ded discourses._ S
eldom
had
college presidents, professors, clergym
en, and leaders am
ong w
om
en_ enJoyed such p_nvileges and
received such m
arked consideration at the hands o
f the general public. It looked as if a new
era o
f
usefulness and distinction had been opened for them
in the field o
f great affairs, and they m
ade the
m
ost o
f its opportunities.”
4
6
Political P
ow
er
.
T
~e sam
e one-track _m
ode o
f thought is found also in dom
estic politics. A
ll
social evils stem
from
our ignorance o
fthe law
s o
feconom
ics; the “single tax” takes
accoun~ ~
f those law
s and w
ill solve all social problem
s. O
ur econom
ic system
is
out o
f JO
m
t because the governm
ent spends m
ore than it collects; balance the
budget and our econom
ic
problem
s w
ill be solved. B
ad linguistic habits are at the
root o
f our _social evils; w
ith the acquisition o
f good linguistic habits our social
problem
s w
ill be solved. E
m
erson, in “N
ew
E
ngland R
eform
ers,” thus described
this kind o
f thinking:
O
ne apostle thought all m
en should go to farm
ing; and another, that no m
an
should buy or sell; that the use of m
oney w
as the cardinal evil; another, that
the m
ischief w
as in our diet, that w
e eat and drink dam
nation. These m
ade
unleavened bread, and w
ere foes to the death to ferm
entation…. O
thers
attacked the system
of agriculture; the use of anim
al m
anures in farm
ing; and
the tyranny of m
an over brute nature; these abuses polluted his food ….
Even the insect w
orld w
as to be defended-that had been too long neglected
and a society for the protection of ground w
orm
s, slugs, and m
osquitoes w
as
to be incorporated w
ithout delay. W
ith these appeared the adepts of hom
eop-
athy; of hydropathy, of m
esm
erism
, ofphrenology, and their w
onderful theo-
ries of the C
hristian m
iracles! O
thers assailed particular vocations, as that of
the law
yer, that of the m
erchant, of the m
anufacturer, of the clergym
an, of the
scholar. O
thers attadced the institution of m
arriage as the fountain of social
evils. O
thers devoted them
selves to the w
orrying of churches and m
eetings for
public w
orship; and the fertile form
s of antinom
ianism
am
ong the elder puri-
tans, seem
ed to have their m
atch in the plenty o
f thi: new
harvest of reform
.29
In the dom
estic field, how
ever, the “m
ethod o
f the single cause” has been
o
f rather lim
ited theoretical and practical im
portance; for here, except in periods
o
f collective insanity, im
m
ediate personal experience reveals the absurdity o
f the
approach; and the pressure o
f the affected interests prevents the quack from
being
m
istaken for the savior.
T
he utopian internationalist, on the other hand, has no direct contact w
ith
the international scene. H
is thought, ifit is sufficiently general, can roam
over the
globe w
ithout ever risking collision w
ith the stark facts o
fpolitics. H
e w
ho w
ould
proclaim
the Four Freedom
s for the U
nited States itself w
ould soon learn from
personal experience the enorm
ity o
f the social and political problem
s entailed by
any attem
pt at realizing those great principles. B
y contrast, proclam
ation o
f the
Four Freedom
s “everyw
here in the w
orld” is sufficiently general to avoid contact
w
ith historical realities and political facts.
T
he reform
er w
ithout responsibility finds in the arm
ory o
fm
odern interna-
tional thought w
hat he is looking for. T
hat one panacea is frequently inconsistent
w
ith an?ther need not t~ouble him
. For since the “single cause” is an arbitrary
abstract1011 from
a m
ultitude o
f actual causes, one abstraction, and hence one
29 R
alph W
aldo E
m
erson, Ess,rys: Second Series (B
oston: H
oughton M
ifflin, 1899), pp. 204-5.
The S
cience o
f P
eace: C
ontem
porary U
topianism
4
7
“single cause,” is as good as the next one. Since, ~rtherm
ore, _the hunt for the
“single cause” derives from
a vague desire to contribute so~ethm
g t? the bett~r-
ent o
f hum
an affairs rather than from
a fixed resolve to m
tervene m
a defim
te
;olitical situation in a definite w
ay, virtually any general explanation of th_e ills o
f
the w
orld and any general plan to rem
edy them
w
ill satisfy the psychic need
involved.
H
ence, the great hunting ground for the “single cause_” and _the “scientific
form
ula” to rem
edy it has been the international scene, w
hile their great season
w
as the tw
o decades betw
een the w
orld w
ars. 30 International society is not organ-
ized· thus “international organization”-in its abstract rationality a kind o
f legal
cou~terpart to the utopian system
s o
f eighteenth-
and nin_eteenth:century philos-
ophy-becam
e the scientific form
ula that, since the leadm
g pacifist and N
obel
Prize w
inner A. H
. Fried propounded it at the beginning of the century, has been
the credo o
f a w
hole school o
f thought. O
thers w
ould look to m
aterial rem
edies.
A
re not w
ars being fought w
ith arm
s? L
et us prohibit or at least reduce arm
am
en_ts,
and w
ar w
ill no longer be possible or at least w
ill be less likely. O
thers, agam
,
w
ould com
bine different rem
edies, defending the com
bination-“on scientific
grounds” -as the only appropriate one. T
hus the French R
adic~l-Socialist Party
advocated “security, arbitration, disarm
am
ent” as logical successive steps for the
establishm
ent o
f perm
anent peace; w
hereas the French Socialists reversed the
sequence and sw
ore to the exclusive scientific v~lue of. the form
ula “sec~rity
through arbitration and disarm
am
ent.” French foreign policy has been especially
productive in abstract schem
es that, like the “plan B
riand,” the “plan Laval,” ~he
“plan T
ardieux,” the “plan H
erriot,” or the “plan Paul-B
oncour,” pretended to_ give
in one legal form
ula a scientific solution to the problem
s of E
uropean secunty.
In other quarters, especially since the crisis o
f 1929, the “single cause” o
f
international unrest has been found in the econom
ic field. R
estrictions on inter-
national trade, the lack o
f raw
m
aterials, and insufficient international purchasing
pow
er drive nations to w
ar, so the argum
ent ran. T
hen let us find a scien:ific for-
m
ula for reciprocal trade agreem
ents, for the redistribution of raw
m
atenal~, and
for the floating o
f international loans-and there w
ill be peace. Faced by the im
pe-
rialistic aspirations of the thirties, it w
as reasoned that w
henever nations cannot
change the status quo peacefully they w
ill try to change it by w
ar; thus peaceful
change, scientifically defined, w
ould m
ake w
ar unnecessary. Since bankers’ fears
for their investm
ents w
ere responsible for our involvem
ent in the First W
orld W
ar,
let us outlaw
loans to belligerents: w
e shall thus escape participation in the next
one. M
ore recently, it has been “discovered” that national sovereignty is respon-
sible for w
ar; it follow
s that the pooling o
f national sovereignties in a w
orld fed-
eration or at least in a federation o
f the dem
ocracies is a scientific solution to
the problem
o
f w
ar and peace. T
hus our era is alw
ays in search of :he scientific
form
ula, but an obstinate reality again and again m
akes the solut1011 of today
the fallacy o
f tom
orrow
.
30See K
enneth W
. T
hom
pson, Ethics, Functionalism
and Power in International Politics: 17Je Crisis in
Values (B
aton R
ouge: L
ouisiana State U
niversity Press, 1979), pp. 35-45.
Political P
ow
er
4
8
T
he “scientific” era o
f international relations resulted in the substitution o
f
supposedly scientific standards for genuine political evaluations; in som
e cases
this w
ent so far as to im
pede, if not entirely destroy, the ability to m
ake any intel-
ligent political decisions at all. Pow
er, how
ever lim
ited and qualified, is the value
that international politics recognizes as suprem
e. T
he test to w
hich international
political decisions m
ust be subject refers, therefore, to the m
easure in w
hich those
decisions affect the distribution o
fpow
er. T
he question that R
ichelieu, H
am
ilton
(no less than Jefferson, for that m
atter), or D
israeli w
ould ask before they acted on
the international scene w
as: does this decision increase or decrease the pow
er o
f
this and other nations? T
he question o
f the international “scientist” is different.
Since for him
the history o
f international affairs am
ounts to a succession o
f sci-
entific problem
s, correctly or incorrectly handled by inform
ed or m
isinform
ed
officials, the suprem
e value is not pow
er but truth. T
he quest for and the defense
o
f pow
er then becom
e aberrations from
the scientific attitude, w
hich looks for
causes and rem
edies. If w
e do not like the w
ay things are, let us look for the cause
and change things by changing the cause. T
here is essentially nothing to fight for;
there is alw
ays som
ething to analyze, to understand, and to reform
.
H
ow
w
as it possible for the m
odern m
ind to m
ake the belief in the all-
em
bracing pow
ers o
f science the controllingforce o
f its foreign policy? H
ere again,
the answ
er is to be found in the general prem
ises o
frationalistic philosophy, seem
–
ingly verified in its universal assum
ptions by dom
estic experience. T
he victory o
f
liberalism
in the dom
estic field led to a peculiar narrow
ing of the political, and a
corresponding w
idening o
f the nonpolitical, sphere; and thus the latter w
as open
to detached rational exam
ination. O
bjectives that form
erly had been seen as the
prize in the struggle for political pow
er w
ere now
approached in a dispassionate,
m
atter-of.fact w
ay and m
astered in accordance w
ith the specific techniques o
feco-
nom
ics, adm
inistration, or law
. First the natural sciences and religion had freed
them
selves from
political dom
ination and had established their autonom
y. T
hen
liberalism
, by conquering the state, freed an ever-increasing dom
ain from
direct
political dom
ination; finally, liberalism
seem
ed to expel even politics from
the
realm
o
f the state and to m
ake statecraft itself a science. C
om
m
erce and industry
w
ere the first to w
in their autonom
y under reason. T
hat w
hich for the physiocrats
w
as still a political program
, unsuccessfully suggested to the political pow
ers o
fthe
day, w
as for A
dam
Sm
ith already a system
o
f scientific truths verified by experi-
ence, the practical im
plications o
fw
hich no reasonable m
an could escape. Political
tribunals w
ere replaced by independent courts com
posed o
fjudges trained to ren-
der justice according to the principles o
f legal science. A
ntiquated and arbitrary
election system
s favoring certain political groups m
ade w
ay for scientific devices
that w
ould secure full and equal representation for all citizens. T
he civil service
system
put the selection o
f governm
ent personnel on an objective, nonpolitical
basis. T
oday legislative reform
s are increasingly prepared by com
m
ittees o
f experts
w
ho seem
to be influenced largely by scientific instead o
f political considerations.
T
axation, adm
inistration, and insurance becom
e “scientific” in approach; and,
finally, there is no field o
f governm
ental activity that w
ould not be regarded as a
proper area for the application of”political science.”
The S
cience o
f P
eace: C
ontem
porary U
topianism
4
9
T
he use o
f the scientific m
ethod in politics, to w
hich the m
odern m
ind w
as
led by its perception of the liberal experience, w
as and is a political fallacy in
dom
estic affairs. T
here, how
ever, the refined m
echanism
o
f political pressure and
self.interest serves as an autom
atic check on doctrinaire excess. In the international
field such a m
echanism
, acting directly upon the individual, does not exist. It is
here, therefore, that the belief in the lim
itless pow
er o
f the scientific form
ula has
becom
e particularly prolific-and particularly ineffective. For it is here that the
panaceas engendered by this belief have no connection w
hatsoever w
ith the forces
that determ
ine the actual course o
f events. E
vents w
ill, therefore, either follow
their course as though all those proposals by international com
m
issions o
fexperts
and other rationalist-utopian devices had never been invented. O
r those devices
w
ill be applied in an exceptional instance and w
ill then produce effects unfore-
seen by their prom
oters and frequently disastrous to them
-such as the sanctions
against Italy during the Italo-E
thiopian W
ar. Y
et, as a suprem
e irony, this school
of thought attem
pts to m
onopolize for itself the virtue o
f being “practical”; it
treats w
ith disdain the rare attem
pts to base international action on a genuine
understanding o
f the forces determ
ining political reality rather than on the ideal
postulates o
f abstract reason. 31
31A
s far back as 1877, Jam
es L
orim
er could w
rite in “Le Problem
e final du droit international,”
Revue du droit international et de legislation com
par/:e, IX
{1877), p. 184: “Strangely enough, how
ever,
these speculations of E
nglish utilitarianism
, taken as a w
hole, are o
f all the dissertations on the sub-
ject I know
the least useful from
the practical point o
f view
.” C
f. also B
eard, A
Foreig,z Policy in
Am
erica, p. 129: “N
early every evil that w
as inconceivable in internationalist ideology in 1919 cam
e
to pass w
ithin the span o
f tw
enty years. It w
ould seem
then that this schem
e of thought had been
based upon som
e m
isconceptions respecting the nature and propensities of m
en and nations or, if
this explanation is invalid, that internationalists had not adopted the correct ‘approach’ to the goal
they had set before them
selves. T
heir im
age o
f the w
orld had not corresponded w
ith sufficient
exactness to its realities or their m
ethods had been deficient in points o
f technique. T
hey could,
and som
e o
f them
did, ascribe their defeats to the m
adness o
f m
en and nations, but this w
as a con-
fession that their form
er prem
ises and actions had been founded upon errors o
f calculation. In any
event the verdict w
as the sam
e, unless all the blam
e w
as to be laid on A
m
ericans as the w
orld’s
greatest scapegoats.”
