Kenneth Waltz Quotes

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

Then what explains war among states? Rousseau's answer is really that war occurs because there is nothing to prevent it.

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.

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.

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.

It is not true that were the Soviet Union to disappear the remaining states could easily live in peace.

External pressure seems to produce internal unity.

No system of balance functions automatically.

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

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.

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.