Kenneth Waltz Quotes

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.

The transitory interests of royal houses may be advanced in war; the real interests of all people are furthered by the peace.

I am not saying that such a theory cannot be constructed, but only that I cannot see how to do it in any way that might be useful. The decisive point, anyway, is that a macrotheory of international politics would lack the practical implications of macroeconomic theory. National governments can manipulate system-wide economic variables. No agencies with comparable capabilities exist internationally. Who would act on the possibilities of adjustment that a macrotheory of international politics might reveal?

In anarchy there is no automatic harmony.

Differences in the incidence of destruction and "death" do not account for the reluctance to refer to international politics as a harmonious realm, while competitive economies are often so described. Instead, one may say that the standards of performance now applied to international political systems are higher, or at least widely different. As John Maynard Keynes once remarked, those who believe that unhampered processes of natural selection lead to progress do not "count the cost of the struggle" (1926, p. 37). In international politics, we often count nothing but the costs of the struggle.

The most important causes of political arrangements and acts are found in the nature and behavior of man.

No system of balance functions automatically.

Each man does seek his own interest, but, unfortunately, not according to the dictates of reason.

Asking who won a given war, someone has said, is like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake. That in war there is no victory but only varying degrees of defeat is a proposition that has gained increasing acceptance in the twentieth century.

Is it capitalism or states that must be destroyed in order to get peace, or must both be abolished?

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.

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.

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.

Once socialism replaces capitalism, reason will determine the policies of states.

War may achieve a redistribution of resources, but labor, not war, creates wealth.