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Contention and Management in International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Kenneth N. Waltz
Kenneth N. Waltz
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College
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Extract

THE idea that peaceful adjustment of the relations of states may result from contention among them Claude believes to be hopelessly outmoded. The presence of nuclear weapons means that any equilibrium of states, however stable it may seem, is not nearly stable enough. The task of the theorist and the statesman alike is to introduce order from above, to replace the “invisible hand” by which adjustments are contrived in systems of self-regulation with something a little more substantial. Here the juxaposition of our two authors enlivens the subject. F. H. Hinsley considers the notion of spontaneous equilibrium to be a liberating idea. He applies the eighteenth century's beautiful system of natural harmony to the world of the present and is delighted with the result. Though large-scale war would now be devastating, we need not worry. Nuclear power is absolute and nuclear states, competent to control the instruments of power at their disposal, deter each other absolutely.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , July 1965 , pp. 720 - 744
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1965

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References

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