Kenneth Waltz Quotes

24 Sourced Quotes

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.

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

Kenneth Waltz
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.

Kenneth Waltz
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.

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

Kenneth Waltz
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.

Kenneth Waltz
External pressure seems to produce internal unity.

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

Kenneth Waltz
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.

Kenneth Waltz
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.

Kenneth Waltz
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.

Kenneth Waltz
States in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law.

Kenneth Waltz
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.

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

Kenneth Waltz
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.

Kenneth Waltz
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?

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

Kenneth Waltz
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.

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

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

Kenneth Waltz
To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous.

Kenneth Waltz
If we gather more and more data and establish more and more associations, however, we will not finally find that we know something. We will simply end up having more and more data and larger sets of correlations.

Kenneth Waltz
In a zero-sum game, the problem is entirely one of distribution, not at all one of production.

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

Kenneth Waltz