Kenneth Waltz (1924 – 2013)
Member of the faculty at the University of California and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars of international relations of the 20th century.
According to the first image of international relations, the locus of the important causes of war is found in the nature and behavior of man. Wars result from selfishness, from misdirected aggressive impulses, from stupidity.
War most often promotes the internal unity of each state involved. The state plagued by internal strife may then, instead of waiting for the accidental attack, seek the war that will bring internal peace.
Each man does seek his own interest, but, unfortunately, not according to the dictates of reason.
With many sovereign states, with no system of law enforceable among them, with each state judging its grievances and ambitions according to the dictates of its own reason or desire - conflict, sometimes leading to war, is bound to occur.
Each state pursues its own interest's, however defined, in ways it judges best. Force is a means of achieving the external ends of states because there exists no consistent, reliable process of reconciling the conflicts of interest that inevitably arise among similar units in a condition of anarchy.
It is not true that were the Soviet Union to disappear the remaining states could easily live in peace.
In anarchy there is no automatic harmony.
Once socialism replaces capitalism, reason will determine the policies of states.
War may achieve a redistribution of resources, but labor, not war, creates wealth.
States in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law.
The implication of game theory, which is also the implication of the third image, is, however, that the freedom of choice of any one state is limited by the actions of the others.
The transitory interests of royal houses may be advanced in war; the real interests of all people are furthered by the peace.
The best critical consideration of the inherent weakness of a federation of states in which the law of the federation has to be enforced on the states who are its members is contained in the Federalist Papers.
In a zero-sum game, the problem is entirely one of distribution, not at all one of production.
Is it capitalism or states that must be destroyed in order to get peace, or must both be abolished?
To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous.
No system of balance functions automatically.
To solve these problems one needs as much an understanding of politics as an understanding of man - and the one cannot be derived from the other.
External pressure seems to produce internal unity.
If we are to have peace, we must learn loyalty to a larger group. And before we can learn loyalty, the thing to which we are to be loyal must be created.