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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
The predictive power of the social sciences is poor. That of the science of international relations is particularly mediocre, since it deals with a type of social action—the conduct of foreign policy—that is pervaded by uncertainty and in which even the most carefully calculated actions partake of gambling. Therefore, to try to forecast the chances of “international military force” in general during the years to come would be an exercise in futility. There are, however, two tasks which a political scientist can begin to perform. One consists of making the necessary distinctions; they may appear tiresome to the general reader and trifling to the impatient reformer, but both those gentlemen ought to remember that the opposite of distinctions is confusion. The second task consists of examining what kinds of international forces appear to be compatible with the international system in which we live.
1 The United States proposals for general and complete disarmament of 1962 distinguish also betweenc the functions of the International Disarmament Organization and those of the UN peace force.
2 As examples of these analyses, see Liska, George, International Equilibrium (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Snyder, Glenn H., Deterrence and Defense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who distinguishes a strategic balance of terror and a tactical balance of power.
3 Military might itself depends, of course, on industrial potential, population, space, etc., and the use of this might, now that it includes nuclear weapons, poses problems and suffers limits that will be mentioned below.
4 This seems to be the case of Herman Kahn. See Thinking about the Unthinkable (New York: Horizon, 1962)Google Scholar, Chapter 7.
5 This is the case of General Pierre Gallois; see his Balance of Terror (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961)Google Scholar.
6 As I. L. Claude has pointed out, the relation between even a world government and a rebel group would be more like that between a national government and a minority, than like that of a government to an individual trouble-maker. (Power and International Relations [New York: Random House, 1962]Google Scholar.)
7 The fact that even in the resolution of November 14, 1961, the use of force was explicitly authorized only for the negative purpose of expelling mercenaries from Katanga has of course added fuel to the controversy. But the very caution of the document indicates the political difficulty of obtaining support for more positive definitions, as well as the practical difficulty of remaining on the cautious side of the line.
8 See this issue, pp. 467—468.
9 See Claude, I. L., “The UN and the Use of Force,” International Conciliation, 03 1961 (No. 532)Google Scholar.
10 The relevant precedents would be the Boxer expedition and the discussions among the Allies on strategy and on a unified command during World Wars I and II.
11 See Hoffmann, Stanley, “Rousseau on War and Peace,” to be published in the American Political Science Review, 06 1963 (Vol. 57, No. 2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 See his Peace Theory (New York: Knopf, 1962)Google Scholar.
13 For reasons that will be discussed more fully below (see p. 423 and p. 424, footnote 24), I do not believe in the possibility or success of ambitious explicit agreements of that sort until after a radical transformation of the present system (to be defined below) has already begun.
14 See this issue, pp. 448–449.
15 Claude, , Power and International Relations, p. 121Google Scholar.
16 See Hoffmann, Stanley, “Restraints and Choices in American Foreign Policy,” Daedalus, Fall 1962, pp. 668—704Google Scholar.
17 Recent developments after the Cuban crisis confirm this analysis. There is one additional advantage of informal restraints over explicit agreements: violations are less likely to produce crises. For law operates as a plate glass window: breaking it makes noise and brings out the police, whereas throwing a rock across an open field draws less attention.
18 See this issue, p. 393.
19 One can envisage that the United States would support interposition forces in case of serious troubles in Angola or, say, South Africa; it is hard to imagine the United States backing a collective security expedition against an ally or a close partner of an important ally.
20 See this issue, p. 442.
21 The same is true in UN economic development institutions.
22 The ideological East-West battle is an asymmetrical one. As I have written elsewhere (see p. 414, footnote 16, above) the United States “is an ideological contender by necessity rather than choice.” See Aron, Raymond, Paix et Guerre entre les Nations (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1962)Google Scholar, Chapter XXII.
23 For a witty and fine distinction between merely common interests and joint ones, see Marshall, C. B., “Notes on Conferencemanship,” New Republic, 02 16, 1963 (Vol. 148, No. 7)Google Scholar.
24 This traditional mechanism of imbalance against a stray great power could not function again if that power were in possession of means of mass destruction. A multipolar world in which all the major states would be full-fledged nuclear powers (i.e., had effective invulnerable deterrents capable of inflicting unacceptable damage on any enemy) would not be a moderate one—to say the least (Aron, op. cit., doubts that such a system could function or that today's super powers would tolerate its emergence). Thus the hypothesis discussed in the text presupposes some degree of arms control. I agree with the champions of arms control when they point out that without such measures moderation will be impossible to achieve; I do not believe, however, that those measures are likely to be explicitly defined and applied so long as the basic conditions of a return to moderation, described in the text as an end of the Cold War, have not been met. Thus we agree about the need, but differ about timing and prerequisites.
