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Kenneth N. Waltz Quotes

Kenneth Neal Waltz was an American political scientist who was a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations. He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.Waltz was one of the original founders of neorealism, or structural realism, in international relations theory and later became associated with the school of defensive neorealism. Waltz's theories have been extensively debated within the field of international relations. In 1981, Waltz published a monograph arguing that in some cases the proliferation of nuclear weapons could increase the probability of international peace.Leslie H. Gelb has considered Waltz one of the "giants" who helped define the field of international relations as an academic discipline. Columbia University colleague Robert Jervis has said of Waltz, "Almost everything he has written challenges the consensus that prevailed at the time" and "Even when you disagree, he moves your thinking ahead." Wikipedia  

✵ 8. June 1924 – 12. May 2013
Kenneth N. Waltz photo

Works

Man, the State, and War
Man, the State, and War
Kenneth N. Waltz
Theory of International Politics
Kenneth N. Waltz: 26 quotes3 likes

Famous Kenneth N. Waltz Quotes

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter V, Some Implications Of The Second Image, p. 150

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 188

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 81

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VIII, Conclusion, p. 230

“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 N. Waltz book Theory of International Politics

Source: Theory of International Politics (1979), p. 110

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 42

Kenneth N. Waltz Quotes about war

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 159

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 16

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VIII, Conclusion, p. 224

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 1

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 98

Kenneth N. Waltz Quotes

“No system of balance functions automatically.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 210

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 23

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 186

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 69

“In anarchy there is no automatic harmony.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 160

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter V, Some Implications Of The Second Image, p. 127

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 204

“To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 107

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 163

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

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 202

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VIII, Conclusion, p. 238

“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 N. Waltz book Theory of International Politics

Source: Theory of International Politics (1979), p. 4

“External pressure seems to produce internal unity.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter V, Some Implications Of The Second Image, p. 149

“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 N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 38

“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 N. Waltz book Theory of International Politics

Source: Theory of International Politics (1979), p. 137

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