Man, the State, and War (1959)

• 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.
  • Chapter I, Introduction, p. 1

• 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.
  • Chapter II, The First Image, p. 16

• Each man does seek his own interest, but, unfortunately, not according to the dictates of reason.
  • Chapter II, The First Image, p. 23

• 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.
  • Chapter II, The First Image, p. 38

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.

• The most important causes of political arrangements and acts are found in the nature and behavior of man.
  • Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 42

• 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.
  • Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 69

• 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.
  • Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 81

• The transitory interests of royal houses may be advanced in war; the real interests of all people are furthered by the peace.
  • Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 98

In anarchy there is no automatic harmony.

• To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous.
  • Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 107

• Is it capitalism or states that must be destroyed in order to get peace, or must both be abolished?
  • Chapter V, Some Implications Of The Second Image, p. 127

• External pressure seems to produce internal unity.
  • Chapter V, Some Implications Of The Second Image, p. 149

• Once socialism replaces capitalism, reason will determine the policies of states.
  • Chapter V, Some Implications Of The Second Image, p. 150

• 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.
  • Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 159

• In anarchy there is no automatic harmony.
  • Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 160

• States in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law.
  • Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 163

• 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.
  • Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 186

• Then what explains war among states? Rousseau's answer is really that war occurs because there is nothing to prevent it.
  • Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 188

• In a zero-sum game, the problem is entirely one of distribution, not at all one of production.
  • Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 202

No system of balance functions automatically.

• 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.
  • Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 204

• No system of balance functions automatically.
  • Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 210

• War may achieve a redistribution of resources, but labor, not war, creates wealth.
  • Chapter VIII, Conclusion, p. 224

• It is not true that were the Soviet Union to disappear the remaining states could easily live in peace.
  • Chapter VIII, Conclusion, p. 230

• 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.
  • Chapter VIII, Conclusion, p. 238

Theory of International Politics (1979)

• 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.
  • p. 4

• 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?
  • p. 110

• 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.
  • p. 137