158 The Second Image: Implications
millennial revisionist theory.62 The revisionists themselves apparently never realized this.
The examination of socialist theory and practice provides an example of the continuity and reappearance of thought patterns in international politics and serves as a detailed study of the applicability of the kind of analysis undertaken in this book. It demonstrates that the elaboration and critical comparison of types of thought in international politics can be of use in evaluating analyses and prescriptions widely separated in time and broadly divergent in content. It is at this point not necessary to repeat with reference to the revisionists all of the criticisms raised against liberals. If it is apparent that the same criticisms apply, the purpose of the present chapter is accomplished.
«2 See above, p. 127.
CHAPTER VI.   THE THIRD IMAGE
International Conflict and International Anarchy
For what can be done against force without force?
CICERO, The Letters to His Frmds
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. To achieve a favorable outcome from such conflict a state has to rely on its own de-vices, the relative efficiency of which must be its constant concern. This, the idea of the third image, is to be examined in the present chapter. It is not an esoteric idea; it is not a new idea. Thucydides implied it when he wrote that it was "the growth of the Athenian power, which terrified the Lacedaemonians and forced them into waT." 1 John Adams implied it when he wrote to the citizens of Petersburg, Virginia, that "a war with France, if just and necessary, might wean us from fond and blind affections, which no Nation ought ever to feel towards another, as our experience in more than one instance abundantly testifies."1 There is an obvious relation between the concern over
1 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, it. Jowett, Book I, par. 23.
2 Letter of John Adams to the citizens of the town of Petersburg, dated June 6, 1798, and reprinted in the program for the visit of William Howard Taft, Petersburg, Va.. May 19, 1909.
160 The Third Image
relative power position expressed by Thucydides and the admonition of John Adams that love affairs between states are inappropriate and dangerous. This relation is made explicit in Frederick Dunn's statement that "so long is the notion of self-help persists, the aim of maintaining the power position of the nation is paramount to all other :onsiderations." 3
In anarchy there is no automatic harmony. The three preceding statements reflect this fact. A state will use force to attain its goals if, after assessing the prospects for iuccess, it values those goals more than it values the pleasures of peace. Because each state is the final judge of its wn cause, any state may at any time use force to implement its policies. Because any state may at any time use :orce, all states must constantly be ready either to counter Eorce with force or to pay the cost of weakness. The requirements oE state action are, in this view, imposed by :he circumstances in which all states exist.
In a manner of speaking, all three images are a part of rature. So fundamental are man, the state, and the state ;ystem in any attempt to understand international Tela-:ions that seldom does an analyst, however wedded to one image, entirely overlook the other two. Still, emphasis nn one image may distort one's interpretation of the others. It is, for example, not uncommon to find those inclined to ;ee the world in terms of either the first or the second mage countering the oft-made argument that arms breed not war but security, and possibly even peace, by pointing >ut that the argument is a compound of dishonest myth, :o cover the interests of politicians, armament makers, and others, and honest illusion entertained by patriots sin-:erely interested in the safety of their states. To dispel the illusion, Cobden, to recall one of the many who have
International Anarchy 161
argued this way, once pointed out that doubling armaments, if everyone does it, makes no state more secure and, similarly, that none would be endangered if all military establishments were simultaneously reduced by, say, 50 percent.4 Putting aside the thought that the arithmetic is not necessarily an accurate reflection of what the situation would be, this argument illustrates a supposedly practical application of the first and second images. Whether by educating citizens and leaders of the separate states or by improving the organization of each of them, a condition is sought in which the lesson here adumbrated becomes the basis for the policies of states. The result?—disarmament, and thus economy, together with peace, and thus security, for all states. If some states display a willingness to pare down their military establishments, other states will be able to pursue similar policies. In emphasizing the interdependence of the policies of all states, the argument pays heed to the third image. The optimism is, however, the result of ignoring some inherent difficulties. In this and the following chapter, by developing and examining the third image in detail, we attempt to make clear what these difficulties are.
In preceding chapters we examined the reasoning of a number of men whose thoughts on international relations conform to either the first or second image. In the present chapter, for the sake of varying the treatment and because political philosophy provides insufficiently exploited clues to the understanding of international politics, we shall focus primarily upon the political thought of one man, Jean Jacques Rousseau. For the same pair of reasons, in making comparisons with the first and second images, we shall refer most often to two philosophers who closely followed those patterns—Spinoza for the first image,
»Dunn, Peaceful Change, p. 13.
* Cobden, especially his Speeches on Peace, Financial Reform, Colonial Reform, and Other Subjects Delivered during 1849, p. 135.
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Kant for the second. Though both have been mentioned before, a summary of the reasoning on which they bated their views of international relations will make the comparisons more useful.
Spinoza explained violence by reference to human imperfections.    Passion displaces reason, and consequently men, who out of self-interest ought to cooperate with one another in perfect harmony, engage endlessly in quarrels ind physical violence.   The defectiveness of man is the :ause of conflict.   Logically, if this is the sole cause, the :nd of conflict must depend on the reform of men. Spin-)ia nevertheless solved the problem, on the national level inly, not by manipulating the supposedly causal factor )ut by altering the environment in which it operates. This was at once the great inconsistency and the saving ;race of his system.   Spinoza moved from the individual nd the nation lo the state among states by adding one to he number of his original assumptions.   States, he as-umes, are like men; they display both an urge to live and n inability consistently to order their affairs according to tie dictates of reason.5   States, however, can provide gainst their own oppression, whereas individuals, "over-ome daily by sleep, often by disease or mental infirmity, nd in the end by old age," cannot.   Individuals, to sur-ive, must combine; states, by their very constitution, are ot subject to a similar necessity*   Wars among states are len as inevitable as are defects in the nature of man. Kant's analysis, while on some points similar to Spinoza's, both more complex and more suggestive.   Men he de-
5Though for Spinoza the unity of the state rests ultimately on the ility of the supreme authority to enforce hi» will, in explaining the havior of states he uses both an organismic and a corporate-trust alogy. For the former, see Political Treatise, ch. ii, sec. 3; ch. iii, sec. 2. r the latter, see ibid., ch. iii. sec. 14, and Theologico-Political Treatise, . xvi (i, 208).
iSpinoia, Political Treatise, ch. iii, sec, 11.
International Anarchy 163 fines as being members of both the world of sense and the world of understanding.   If they were wholly of the latter, they would always act according to universally valid, self-imposed maxims.   They would follow the categorical imperative.   But since they are members of the former as well, impulse and inclination overcome reason, and the categorical imperative is so seldom followed that in the state of nature conflict and violence reign.  The civil state appears as a necessary constraint.   A number of men acting upon empirical "and therefore merely contingent" knowledge must have a judge among them, and a judge who can enforce his decisions, if violence is to be avoided. After the state is established, men have some chance of behaving morally. Before the state is established, uncertainty and violence make this impossible.   Men need the security of law before improvement in their moral lives is possible.   The civil state makes possible the ethical life of the individual by protecting the rights that were logically his in the state of nature, though actually he could not enjoy them.   The civil state, however, is not enough. Peace among as well as within states is essential to the development of uniquely human capacities.   States in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law. Consequently conflict and violence among them are inevitable.   But this bit of analysis does not lead Kant to the conclusion that a world state is the answer. Fearing that a world state would become a terrible despotism, stifle liberty, kill initiative, and in the end lapse into anarchy, he must cast about for another solution. The other possibility open to him is that all states so improve that they will act on maxims that can be universalized without conflict.   While Kant fears the former solution, he is too cautious and too intelligently critical to hope for the latter.   Instead he attempts to combine the two. It
164 The Third Image
is the aim of his political philosophy to establish the hope that states may improve enough and learn enough from the suffering and devastation of war to make possible a rule of law among them that is not backed by power but is voluntarily observed.1 The first factor is the internal improvement of states; the second, the external rule of law. But the second, being voluntary, is completely dependent on the perfection with which the first is realized. The "power" to enforce the law is derived not from external sanction but from internal perfection.8 This is a solution according to the second image, that is by the improvement of the separate states, though Kant's own analysis leads one to question his conclusion. At the level of the state, an adequate political system permits individuals to behave ethically; a comparably adequate system is not attainable internationally. Still we are to hope for peace among states. The inconsistency is apparent, though its glare is somewhat dimmed by Kant's confession that he has established not the "inevitability" of perpetual peace but
7 For the above comments on man and morality, see "Fundamental Principles oE the Metaphysic of Morals," sees. 2 and 3. in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, tt. Abbolt. On the natural and civil states, see The Philosopy of Lain, tr. Hastie, sees. 8, 9, 41, 42, 44. On the dependence of morality on a condition of peace among states, see "The Natural Principle of the Political Order Considered in Connection with the Idea of a Universal Cosmopolitical History," Eighth Proposition, in Eternal Peace and Other International Essays, tr. Hastie. On the characteristics of the international federation, sec "The Principle of Progress Considered in Connection with the Relation of Theory to Practice in International Law," in ibid., pp. 62-65; "Eternal Peace," First and Second Definitive Articles, in ibid.; and The Philosophy of Law, tr. Hastie, sec. 61.
8 Each republic, the form o£ the state that Kant labels good, "unable to injure any other by violence, must maintain itself by right alone; and it may hope on real grounds that the others being constituted like itself will then come, on occasions of need, to its aid." ("The Principle of Progress Considered in Connection with the Relation of Theory to Practice in International Law," in Eternal Peace and Other International Essays, tr. Hastie, p. 64.) Republics, Kant must assume, will act in accordance with the categorical imperative.
International Anarchy 165 only that the existence of such a condition is not unthinkable,0
In Rousseau's philosophy, considered in this chapter as a theory of international relations, emphasis on the framework of state action makes some of the assumptions of Spinoza and Kant unnecessary; it makes other of their assumptions impossible.
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Montesquieu and, like him, Rousseau, upon looking at attempts of other philosophers to understand a real or hypothetical state of nature, were both moved to make the same critical comment. Montesquieu says of Hobbes that he "attributes to mankind before the establishment of society what can happen but in consequence of this establishment." 10 Both Montesquieu and Rousseau maintain that the state of nature of Hobbes—and the same applies to Spinoza—is a fiction constructed by assuming that men in nature possess all of the characteristics and habits they acquire in society but without the constraints imposed by society. Men before the establishment of society have not developed the vices of pride and envy. Indeed they could not, for they see very little o£ one another. Whenever chance brings them together, consciousness of weakness and impotency dissuades them from attacking one another. Since none knows either pride or envy, thrift or greed, he will attack another only if driven by hunger to do so.11
9 This interpretation, supported by considering Kant's political thought in the context of his moral philosophy, contrasts with that found in Friedrich's book on Kant, Inevitable Peace.
10 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, tr. Nugent, Book I, ch. ii. Cf. Rousseau, Inequality, pp. 197, 221-23. Page references are to The Social Contract and Discourses, tr. Cole, which contains The Social Contract, A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, and A Discourse on Political Economy.
n Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, tr. Nugent, Book I, ch. iii; Rousseau, Inequality, pp. 227-33.
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From one point of view this criticism of Hobbes is mere quibbling.   Montesquieu and Rousseau arrive at a different conclusion simply by starting one step further back in their imaginary prehistory than did either Spinoza or Hobbes.   In doing so, however, they emphasize an important point.   Because of the difficulty of knowing such a thing as a pure human nature,12 because the human nature we do know reflects both man's nature and the influence of his environment,13 definitions of human nature such as those of Spinoza and Hobbes are arbitrary and can lead to no valid social or political conclusions. Theoretically at least one can strip away environmentally acquired characteristics and arrive at a view of human nature itself. Rousseau himself has advanced "certain arguments, and risked some conjectures," to this end."   The very difficulty of the undertaking and the uncertainty of the result emphasize the error involved in taking the social man as the natural man, as Hobbes and Spinoza have done. And instead of deriving social conclusions directly from assumed human traits, Montesquieu argues that conflict arises from the social situation: "As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war." 15 This estimate of the causes of conflict Rousseau takes up and develops.16   It raises three questions: (1) Why, if the original state of nature was one of relative peace and quiet, did man ever leave it?   (2) Why does conflict arise in social situations?   (3) How is the control of conflict related to its cause?
12 Rousseau, Inequality, pp. 189-91.
13 Les Confessions, Book IX, in Oeuvres completes tie J, J. Rousseau, VIII, 289; "Aucun peuple ne seroit jamais que ce que la nature de son gouvernement le feroit etre."
» Inequality, p. 190.
1« Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Lams, tr. Nugent, Book I, ch. iii. Italics added.
1» See especially Inequality, pp. 234 ff,
International Anarchy 167
For Spinoza and Hobbes, the formation of state and society was an act of will that served as a means of escape from an intolerable situation.    Similarly Rousseau at times, in his explanation of the establishment of the state, seems to assume the purely willful employment of art and contrivance.17   At other times, Rousseau describes the establishment of the state as the culmination of a long historical evolution containing elements of experience, perceived interest, habit, tradition, and necessity.   The first line of thought leads to the Social Contract; the second to the explanation found in A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.   The seeming contradiction is eliminated by the fact that Rousseau considers the first a philosophical explanation of what happened by historical processes; the second, a hypothetical reconstruction of those processes.18 In the early state of nature, men were sufficiently dispersed to make any pattern of cooperation unnecessary. But finally the combination of increased numbers and the usual natural hazards posed, in a variety of situations, the proposition: cooperate or die.   Rousseau illustrates the line of reasoning with the simplest example.   The example is worth reproducing, for it is the point of departure for the establishment of government and contains the basis for his explanation of conflict in international relations as well.   Assume that five men who have acquired a rudimentary ability to speak and to understand each other happen to come together at a time when all of them suffer from hunger.   The hunger of each will be satisfied by the fifth part of a stag, so they "agree" to cooperate in a project to trap one.   But also the hunger of any one of them will be satisfied by a hare, so, as a hare comes within Teach,
l' See, e.g.. Social Contract, pp. 4, 7 (Book I, chs. i, iv).
18 In Inequality, pp. 190-91, he refers to the state of nature as "a state which no longer exists, perhaps never did exist, and probably never will exist; and of which it is, nevertheless, necessary to have true ideas." Ct ibid., p. 198.
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one of them grabs it. The defectOT obtains the means of satisfying his hunger but in doing so permits the stag to escape. His immediate interest prevails over consideration for his fellows.1'
The story is simple; the implications are tremendous. In cooperative action, even where all agree on the goal and have an equal interest in the project, one cannot rely on others. Spinoza linked conflict causally to man's imperfect reason. Montesquieu and Rousseau counter Spinoza's analysis with the proposition that the sources of conflict are not so much in the minds of men as they are in the nature of social activity. The difficulty is to some extent verbal. Rousseau grants that if we knew how to receive the true justice that comes from God, "we should need neither government nor laws." 20 This corresponds to Spinoza's proposition that "men in so far as they live in obedience to reason, necessarily live always in harmony one with another." 21 The idea is a truism. If men were perfect, their perfection would be reflected in all of their calculations and actions. Each could rely on the behavior of others and all decisions would be made on principles that would preserve a true harmony of interests. Spinoza emphasizes not the difficulties inherent in mediating conflicting interests but the defectiveness of man's reason that prevents their consistently making decisions that would be in the interest of each and for the good of all. Rousseau faces the same problem. He imagines how men must have behaved as they began to depend on one another to meet their daily needs. As long as each provided for his own wants, there could be no conflict; whenever the combination of natural obstacles and growth in population made cooperation necessary, conflict arose.   Thus in the
International Anarchy 169
stag-hunt example the tension between one man's immediate interest and the general interest of the group is resolved by the unilateral action of the one man. To the extent that he was motivated by a feeling of hunger, his act is one of passion. Reason would have told him that his long-run interest depends on establishing, through experience, the conviction that cooperative action will benefit all of the participants. But reason also tells him that if he foregoes the hare, the man next to him might leave his post to chase it, leaving the first man with nothing but food for thought on the folly of being loyal.
The problem is now posed in more significant terms. If harmony is to exist in anarchy, not only must I be perfectly rational but I must be able to assume that everyone else is too. Otherwise there is no basis for rational calculation. To allow in my calculation for the irrational acts of others can lead to no determinate solutions, but to attempt to act on a rational calculation without making such an allowance may lead to my own undoing. The latter argument is reflected in Rousseau's comments on the proposition that "a people of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable." In the first place he points out that such a society "would not be a society of men." Moreover, he says, "For the state to be peaceable and for harmony to be maintained, all the citizens without exception would have to be [equally] good Christians; if by ill hap there should be a single self-seeker or hypocrite ... he would certainly get the better of his pious compatriots," 22
If we define cooperative action as rational and any deviation from it irrational, we must agree with Spinoza that conflict results from the irrationality of men.   But if we
" /did., p. 238,
2«Social Contract, p. S4 (Book II. ch. ct. Political Economy, p. 296. 21 Spinoza, Ethics, Part IV, prop, ihv, proof.
a Social Contract, pp. 1J5-36 {Book IV, ch. viii). Italics added. The word "equally" is necessary (or an accurate rendering of the French text but does not appear in the translation cited.
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examine the requirements of rational action, we find that even in an example as simple as the stag hunt we have to assume that the reason of each leads to an identical definition of interest, that each will draw the same conclusion as to the methods appropriate to meet the original situation, that all will agree instantly on the action required by any chance incidents that raise the question of altering the original plan, and that each can rely completely on the steadfastness of purpose of all the others. Perfectly rational action requires not only the perception that our welfare is tied up with the welfare of others but also a perfect appraisal of details so that we can answer the question: Just how in each situation is it tied up with everyone else's? Rousseau agrees with Spinoza in refusing to label the act of the rabbit-snatcher either good or bad; unlike Spinoza, he also refuses to label it either rational or irrational. He has noticed that the difficulty is not only in the actors but also in the situations they face. While by no means ignoring the part that avarice and ambition play in the birth and growth of conflict,23 Rousseau's analysis makes clear the extent to which conflict appears inevitably in the social affairs of men.
In short, the proposition that irrationality is the cause of all the world's troubles, in the sense that a world of perfectly rational men would know no disagreements and no conflicts, is, as Rousseau implies, as true as it is irrelevant. Since the world cannot be defined in terms of perfection, the very real problem of how to achieve an approximation to harmony in cooperative and competitive activity is always with us and, lacking the possibility of perfection, it is a problem that cannot be solved simply by changing men.   Already Rousseau has made it possible to
23 A Lasting Peace, tr. Vaughan, p. 72. On p. 91 Rousseau refers to men as "unjust, grasping and setting their own interest above all things." This raises the question of the relation of the third image to the first, which will be discussed in ch, viii, below.
International Anarchy 171
dispense with two of the assumptions of Spinoza and Kant. If conflict is the by-product of competition and attempts at cooperation in society, then it is unnecessary to assume self-preservation as man's sole motivation; for conflict results from the seeking of any goal—even if in the seeking one attempts to act according to Kant's categorical imperative.
from  nature to state
In the state of nature, for Rousseau as for Spinoza and Kant, men are governed by "instinct," "physical impulses," and "right of appetite"; and "liberty ... is bounded only by the strength of the individual." Agreements cannot bind, for "in default of natural sanctions, the laws of justice are ineffective among men." 24 Without the protection of civil law, even agriculture is impossible, for who, Rousseau asks, "would be so absurd as to take the trouble of cultivating a field, which might be stripped of its crop by the first comer?" To be provident is impossible, for without social regulation there can be no obligation to respect the interests, rights, and property of others. But to be provident is desirable, for it makes life easier; or even necessary, for population begins to press on the amount of food available under a given mode of production. Some men unite, set up rules governing cooperative and competitive situations, and organize the means of enforcing them. Others are forced to follow the new pattern, for those outside the organized society, unable to cooperate effectively, cannot stand up against the efficiency of a group united and enjoying the benefits of a social division of labor.26
It is clear that in moving from the state of nature to
USocial Contract, pp. 18-19 (Book I, ch. viii); p. 34 {Book II, ch. vi).
28 Inequality, pp. Z12, 249-52. The dialectical development, in which each step toward the social state produces difficulties and near disasters, is especially interesting.
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the civil state man gains materially. But there are more than material gains involved. Rousseau makes this clear in a brief chapter of The Social Contract, which Kant later followed closely. "The passage from the state of nature to the civil state," Rousseau says, "produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked." Man prior to the establishment of the civil state possesses natural liberty; he has a right to all he can get. This natural liberty he abandons when he enters the civil state. In return he receives "civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses." Natural liberty becomes civil liberty; possession becomes proprietorship. And in addition "man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty." 28
THE STATE AMONG STATES
For Rousseau as for Kant the civil state contributes to the possibility of the moral life, though Rousseau conceives of the contribution as a more positive one, somewhat in the manner of Plato and Aristotle. But what of the condition among the civil states themselves? At this point, Spinoza reverted to the analysis he had applied to individuals in the state of nature where, he thought, conflict had resulted from the defective reason of man, Kant too reverted to his analysis of the original conflict among men, but in his case the explanation included both the nature of the conflicting units and their environment. The explanations of Rousseau and Kant are similar, but Rousseau's is the more consistent and complete.
The social contract theorist, be he Spinoza, Hobbes,
2« Social Contract, pp. 18-19 (Book. I, ch, viii).
International Anarchy 173 Locke, Rousseau, or Kant, compares the behavior of states in the world to that of men in the state of nature. By defining the state of nature as a condition in which acting units, whether men or states, coexist without an authority above them, the phrase can be applied to states in the modern world just as to men living outside a civil state. Clearly states recognize no common superior, but can they be described as acting units?   This question we must examine before considering Rousseau's schematic description of the behavior of the state among states. H    Rousseau, like Spinoza, occasionally uses corporate-trust and organismic analogies.   The first is implied in his statement that the sovereign cannot do anything derogatory to the continued existence of the state.   The end of the state is "the preservation and prosperity of its members." aT The organismic analogy is reflected in his statement that "the body politic, taken individually, may be considered as an organized, living body, resembling that of man." As a living being, "the most important of its cares is the care of its own preservation." 28  Rousseau, however, cautions that the analogy is loosely used.   The identity of individual and state motivation is a possible coincidence, not, as in Spinoza, a necessary assumption.   And he defines with considerable care what he means when he describes the state as a unit complete with will and purpose.
In this respect, Rousseau can be considered as distinguishing two cases: states as we find them and states that are constituted as they ought to be. Of the first, he makes clear, there can be no presumption that the interest of the state and the action of the sovereign coincide.   Indeed in
27 Ibid., pp. 15-17 (Book 1, ch. vii); p. 83 (Book III, ch. ix).
28 Political Economy, p. 289: Socio! Contract, p. 28 (Book II, ch. iv). CI. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, tr. Nugent, Book X, ch. ii: "The life of governments is like that ot man. The latter has a right to kill in case ot natural defense the former have a right to wage war for their own preservation."
174 The Third Image
most states it would be strange if they did, for the sovereign, far from caring for the interests of his state, is seldom moved but by personal vanity and greed. Even to such states organismic and corporate analogies have a limited application, for in one way the state is still a unit. The sovereign, so long as he retains sufficient power, carries out his will as though it were the will of the state. This parallels Spinoza, who simply assumes that in international affairs the state must be considered as acting on behalf of all its members. Rousseau adds to this an analysis, which, supplemented and borne out by the subsequent history of nationalism, reveals that the state may become a unit in a deeper sense than the philosophy of Spinoza can comprehend. Rousseau argues that under certain conditions a state will actualize the general will in its decisions, the general will being defined as the decision of the state to do what is "best" for its members considered collectively. The unity of the state is achieved when there exist the conditions necessary for the actualization of the general will.
From this abstract formulation one can scarcely derive an answer to the question that interests Rousseau: Under what conditions will the state achieve the unity that he desires for it?   Fortunately it is quite easy to make Rousseau's formulation concrete.   Public spirit or patriotism, he says, is the necessary basis of the good state.   In the ; primitive tribe, economic interdependence and pressure J from outside produced group solidarity. Amid the greater complexities of the eighteenth century, Rousseau fears that the spirit of solidarity found in the social or political ^ groups of a simpler era has been lost.   "There are today," he writes, "no longer Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards,: Englishmen . . .; there are only Europeans."   All haves the same tastes, passions, and morals because none receives! a distinctive shaping of his character from his national in-i
International Anarchy 175
stitutions.2* Patriotism is, he thinks, in danger of being lost in a welter of counterpassions arising from sub- or transnational interests. How, among so many other interests, can patriotism grow? This is the question Rousseau asks.   He answers:
If children are brought up in common in the bosom of equality; if they are imbued with the laws of the State and the precepts of the general will; if they are taught to respect these above all things; if they are surrounded by examples and objects which constantly remind them of the tender mother who nourishes them, of the love she bears them, of the inestimable benefits they receive from her, and of the return they owe her, we cannot doubt thai they will learn to cherish one another mutually as brothers, to will nothing contrary to the will of society, to substitute the actions of men and citizens for the futile and vain babbling of sophists, and to become in time defenders and fathers of the country of which they will have been so long the children.30
In such a state, conflict is eliminated and unity is achieved because, from a negative point of view, equality prevents the development of those partial interests so fatal to the unity of the state; from a positive point of view, the inculcation of public feeling imparts to the citizen a spirit of devotion to the welfare of the whole.81 The will of the state is the general will; there is no problem of disunity and conflict.
In studying international politics it is convenient to think of states as the acting units. At the same time, it does violence to one's common sense to speak of the state, which is after all an abstraction and consequently inani-
59 Considerations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne, in Vaughan, ed., The Political Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, II, 432. The following, used below, are also cited from this work: Projet de Constitution pour ta Corse and extracts from Smile.
50 Political Economy, p. 309.
51 On the importance of equality see Considerations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne, especially II, 436, 456; Projet de Constitution pour la Corse, II, 337-38; and Political Economy, p. 306.   On the importance of
•: building patriotism see Considerations sur le Gouverncmcnt de Pologne, especially II, 437.
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mate, as acting. This is an important point for any theory of international relations, and especially for the third image. How generally applicable are the thoughts of Rousseau to this problem?
The philologist Eric Partridge has commented on the widespread tendency of primitive peoples to refer to themselves as "the men" or "the people," appellations implying that they are better than, as well as distinct from, other similar groups.82 Herodotus found that the Persians regarded themselves as a greatly superior people who rated the merit of other peoples according to their geographic nearness to the Persians.33 That the Greeks applied the same idea to themselves is a commonplace of Hellenic literature, and the Jews were certain that they were the chosen people of God. The feeling here expressed is the sentiment of group or local patriotism. Prior to the eighteenth century the sentiment was either confined to a small part of a population spread over a relatively large area or it was confined to a larger percentage of those living in a relatively small area. An example of the first condition is found in the resistance in France to the interference of Pope Boniface VIII in questions that king, nobility, and clergy united in regarding as domestic. An example of the second is found in the civic feeling in the Greek city-states and in some of the medieval towns.
The existence of group patriotism has no special meaning for our analysis until, as C. J. H. Hayes says, it becomes fused with the idea of nationality. Then we have the immensely important fact of modern nationalism.
82 Partridge, "We Are The People," in Here, There, and Everywhere, pp. 16-20. Cf. "War," in Sumner, War and Other Essays, ed. Keller, p. 12: "Perhaps nine-tenths of all the names given by savage tribes to themselves mean 'Men,' 'The Only Men,' or "Men of Men'; that is, Wo are men, the rest are something else."
a« The History of Herodotus, tr. Rawlinson, I, 71.
International Anarchy 177
Hans Kohn points out that nationalism is impossible without the idea of popular sovereignty; that the growth of nationalism is synonymous with the integration of the masses into a common political form.34 Such an integration is the ideal of Rousseau's political writings, but he, like Plato, thought it possible only within a narrowly circumscribed area—the city-state.35 With the development of modem technology, especially as applied to the means of transportation and communication, it has become possible for the interests of individuals to be thought of as tightly complementary, even without the use of devices Rousseau thought necessary, over areas larger than Rousseau ever visualized. The scale of activity has changed; the idea has not.
The idea of nationalism does not imply that allegiance to the nation is the sole allegiance. It has been increasingly true in recent centuries, however, that most people feel a loyalty to the state that overrides their loyalty to almost any other group. Men once felt a loyalty to church that made them willing to sacrifice their lives in war for it. The mass of men have, in modern times, felt a similar loyalty to the national state. Modern nationalism admits of exception, but the exceptions have seldom resulted in numerous denials of the primary claim of the nation on the loyalties of its citizens.
The centripetal force of nationalism may itself explain why states can be thought of as units. To base one's whole analysis on this point is, however, unnecessary. Rousseau has made it clear that his analysis will apply in
34 Hayes, Essays on Nationalism, p. 29; Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism, pp. 5-4.
35 Cf, the advice he gives in CoTtsid^rott'onj sur le Gouvernement de Fotogne, II, 442: "Commencez par resserrer vos Limites, si vous voulei reformer votre Gouvernement."
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either of two cases: (1) If the state is a unit that can with some appropriateness take the adjective "organismic." This, although Rousseau did not foresee it, has become the case in many states that in most other respects fall far short of his ideal. (2) If the state is a unit only in the sense that some power in the state has so established itself that its decisions are accepted as the decisions of the state.
In any actual state the situation can be described as follows. In the name of the state a policy is formulated and presented to other countries as though it were, to use Rousseau's terminology, the general will of the state. Dissenters within the state are carried along by two considerations: their inability to bring force to bear to change the decision; their conviction, based on perceived interest and customary loyalty, that in the long run it is to their advantage to go along with the national decision and work in the prescribed and accepted ways for its change. The less good the state, by Rousseau's standards, the more important the first consideration, and in the ultimate case the unity of the state is simply the naked power of the de facto sovereign. On the other hand, the better the state, or, we can now add, the more nationalistic, the more the second consideration is sufficient; and in the ultimate case the agreement of the citizens with the government's formulation of foreign policy is complete. In either case, the state appears to other states as a unit. Any "state" falling outside the terms of the preceding descriptions could no longer be considered a unit for purposes of international political analysis, but, since it would also cease to be a state, this does not complicate our problem. Some questions become questions of foreign policy; some questions of foreign policy call for single choices; some of these choices must be supported by the state as a whole or the state disappears—and with it the problem of state
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unity. If we have a state, we have a foreign policy, and in foreign policy the state must on occasion speak with a single voice.
There is a further consideration, which causes the nation to act more consistently as a unit than the preceding analysis suggests. In moments of crisis and especially in the crisis of war, attempts to achieve a nearly unanimous backing for foreign policy are most likely to be successful. The united front is enforced by the feelings of individuals, by their conviction that their own security depends on the security of their state. It is enforced by actions of the state that punish the traitors and reward those who are most effectively or most spectacularly patriotic. It is enforced by pressures from within society: the outrage of the chorus in Aristophanes' The Acharnians in reaction to Dicaeopolis' defense of the enemies of Athens is reflected in the wartime experience of every society.
The unity of a nation, in short, is fed not only by indigenous factors but also by the antagonisms that frequently occur in international relations. Such antagonisms become important not when they result in feelings of hatred between individuals in different countries but when the state mobilizes resources, interests, and sentiments behind a war policy. Previously inculcated feelings of enmity may make a war policy more likely and may increase its chances of success. But the war is prosecuted even though the infantryman on the line might rather be anywhere else doing anything other than shooting at the enemy. Individuals participate in war because they are members of states. This is the position of Rousseau who argues that "if war is possible only between such 'moral beings' [states], it follows that the belligerents have no quarrel with individual enemies." One state makes war on another state.   The object of the war is to destroy
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or alter the opposing state. And if the opposing state "could be dissolved at a single stroke, that instant the war would end." 38
One need not look far for confirmation of the hypothesis. We fought against Germany in the Second World War because as a whole it followed the lead of Hitler and not because so many people in the United States felt a personal enmity for the people of Germany. The fact that we opposed not individuals but states made possible a rapid realignment of states following the war, which is now spectacularly demonstrated by the cooperation of the United States with the leaders and people of states that were a short time ago our mortal enemies.
We can now return to Rousseau's theory of international relations paying special attention to the points that primarily concern him, namely the political environment and qualities of states. Of the role of the international environment, Rousseau says this:
It is quite true that it would be much better for all men to remain always at peace. But so long as there is no security for this, everyone, having no guarantee that he can avoid war, is anxious to begin it at the moment which suits his own interest and so forestall a neighbour, who would not fail to forestall the attack in his turn at any moment favourable to himself, so that many wars, even offensive wars, are rather in the nature of unjust precautions for the protection of the assailant's own possessions than a device for seizing those of others. However salutary it may be in theory to obey the dictates of public spirit, it is certain that, politically and even morally, those dictates are liable to prove fatal to the man who persists in observing them with all the world when no one thinks of observing them towards him.3'
The framework within which nations act makes prudence futile, for to be prudent is useless "when everything is
3« A Lasting Peace, tr. Vaughan, p. 123. Cf. Social Contract, pp. 9-10 (Book 1, ch. iv), and Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, tr. Nugent, Book X, ch. iii.
" A Lolling Peace, tr. Vaughan, pp. 78-79; cf. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, tr. Nugent, Book X, ch. ii.
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left to chance." 38 The character of those who act makes the situation more hopeless still. "The whole life of kings," Rousseau says, "is devoted solely to two objects: to extend their rule beyond their frontiers and to make it more absolute within them. Any other purpose they may have is either subservient to one of these aims, or merely a pretext for attaining them." 38 As for their ministers "on whom they shuffle off their duty" whenever possible, they "are in perpetual need of war, as a means of making themselves indispensable to their master, of throwing him into difficulties from which he cannot escape without their aid, of ruining the State, if things come to the worst, as the price of keeping their own office." *° If in such a world prudence is futile, then sanity is downright dangerous, for "'to be sane in a world of madmen is in itself a kind of madness." 11
Of the relations among states as we find them, Rousseau has said nothing that is not also found in Spinoza and Kant, though in most cases he says it better. But would the existence of a number of good states, whether defined according to the juridical standard of Kant or the more inclusive criteria of Rousseau, add up to a world at peace? To this question Kant answered, yes; Rousseau says, no. The will of the state, which in its perfection is general for each of the citizens, is only a particular will when considered in relation to the rest of the world. Just as the will of an association within the state, while general for itself, may be wrong when considered from the standpoint of the welfare of the state; so the will of a state, though equitable for itself, may be wrong in relation to the world. "Thus it is not impossible," Rousseau says, "that a Republic, though in itself well governed, should
38 A Lasting Peace, tr. Vaughan, p. 88. 3» Ibid,, p. 95. iQIbid., p. 100. 11 Ibid, p. 91.
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enter upon an unjust war." 42 To achieve a will general for the world, the particularity of the separate states would have to be sublimated, just as Rousseau insists the particularity of private associations must be lost in the state. The nation may proclaim, and mean, that its aspirations are legitimate from the point of view of all states; but, despite the intent, each country's formulation of its goals will be of particular rather than of general validity.'43 Since this is the case, the absence of an authority above states to prevent and adjust the conflicts inevitably arising from particular wills means that war is inevitable. Rousseau's conclusion, which is also the heart of his theory of international relations, is accurately though somewhat abstractly summarized in the following statement: That among particularities accidents will occur is not accidental but necessary.'1* And this, in turn, is simply another way of saying that in anarchy there is no automatic harmony.
If anarchy is the problem, then there are only two possible solutions: (1) to impose an effective control on the separate and imperfect states; (2) to remove states from the sphere of the accidental, that is, to define the good state as so perfect that it will no longer be particular. Kant tried to compromise by making states good enough to obey a set of laws to which they have volunteered their assent, Rousseau, whom on this point Kant failed to follow, emphasizes the particular nature of even the good
«Political Economy, pp. 290-91.
**On the subject of local variations in standards of conduct, of which the above thoughts are an extension, consider La Nouvelle Hiloise, Part II, Letter xiv, in Oeuvres completes de J. ]. Rousseau, IV, 160: "Chaque coterie a ses Tegles, ses jugemens, ses principes, qui ne sont point admis ailleurs. L'honnete homme d'une maison est un fripon dans la maison voisine. Le bon, le mauvais, le beau, le laid, la verite, la vertu, n'ont qu'une existence locale et circonscrite."
**This parallels Hegel's formulation: "It is to what is by nature accidental that accidents happen, and the fate whereby they happen is thus a necessity."  Philosophy of Right, tr. Knox, sec. 324,
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state and, in so doing, makes apparent the futility of the solution Kant suggests.45 He also makes possible a theory of international relations that in general terms explains the behavior of all states, whether good or bad.4'
In the stag-hunt example, the will of the rabbit-snatcher was rational and predictable from his own point of view. From the point of view of the rest of the group, it was arbitrary and capricious. So of any individual state, a will perfectly good for itself may provoke the violent resistance of other states.47 The application of Rousseau's theory to international politics is stated with eloquence and clarity in his commentaries on Saint-Pierre and in a short work entitled The State of War. His application bears out the preceding analysis. The states of Europe he writes, "touch each other at so many points that no one of them can move without giving a jar to all the rest; their variances are all the more deadly, as their ties are more closely woven." They "must inevitably fall into quarrels and dissensions at the first changes that come about." And if we ask why they must "inevitably" dash, Rousseau answers: because their union is "formed and maintained by nothing better than chance." The nations of Europe are willful units in close juxtaposition with rules neither clear nor enforceable to guide them. The public law of Europe is but "a mass of contradictory rules which nothing but the right of the stronger can reduce to order: so that in the absence of any sure clue to guide her, reason is bound, in every case of doubt, to obey the promptings of self-interest—which in itself would make war inevitable,
45 Kant is more willing to admit the force of this criticism than is generally realized.  On this point, see above, pp. 164-65.
«This is not, of course, to say that no differences in state behavior follow from the different constitutions and situations of states. This point raises the question of the relation of the third image to the second, which will be discussed in ch. viii, below,
*t Political Economy, pp. 290-91.
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even if all parties desired to be just." In this condition, it is foolhardy to expect automatic harmony of interest and automatic agreement and acquiescence in rights and duties. In a real sense there is a "union of the nations of Europe," but "the imperfections of this association make the state of those who belong to it worse than it would be if they formed no community at all." 48
The argument is clear. For individuals the bloodiest stage of history was the period just prior to the establishment of society. At that point they had lost the virtues of the savage without having acquired those of the citizen. The late stage of the state of nature is necessarily a state of war. The nations of Europe are precisely in that stage/0
What then is cause: the capricious acts of the separate states or the system within which they exist? Rousseau emphasizes the latter:
Every one can see that what unites any form of society is community of interests, and what disintegrates [it] is their conflict; that either tendency may be changed or modified by a thousand accidents; and therefore that, as soon as a society is founded, some coercive power must be provided to co-ordinate the actions of its members and give to their common interests and mutual obligations that firmness and consistency which they could never acquire of themselves.50
But to emphasize the importance of political structure is not to say that the acts that bring about conflict and lead to the use of force are of no importance. It is the specific acts that are the immediate causes of war,61 the general
*&A Lasting Peace, tr. Vaughan. pp. 46-48, 58-59. Cf. Inequality pp. 252-53, and tmilc, II, 157-58.
4« A Lasting Peace, tr. Vaughan, pp. 38, 46-47. On p. 121, Rousseau distinguishes between the "state of war," which always exists among states, and war proper, which manifests itself in the settled intention to destroy the enemy state.
001 bid., p. 49,
si In ibid., p. 69, Rousseau presents his exhaustive list of such causes. Cf. Social Contract, p. 46 (Book II, ch. ix): "There have been known States so constituted that the necessity of making conquests entered into
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structure that permits them to exist and wreak their disasters. To eliminate every vestige of selfishness, perversity, and stupidity in nations would serve to establish perpetual peace, but to try directly to eliminate all the immediate causes of war without altering the structure of the "union of Europe" is Utopian.
What alteration of structure is required? The idea that a voluntary federation, such as Kant later proposed, could keep peace among states, Rousseau rejects emphatically. Instead, he says, the remedy for war among states "is to be found only in such a form of federal Government as shall unite nations by bonds similar to those which already unite their individual members, and place the one no less than the other under the authority of the Law." 62 Kant made similar statements only to amend them out of existence once he came to consider the reality of such a federation. Rousseau does not modify his principle, as is made clear in the following quotation, every point of which is a contradiction of Kant's program for the pacific federation:
The Federation [that is to replace the "free and voluntary association which now unites the States of Europe"] must embrace all the important Powers in its membership: it must have a Legislative Body, with powers to pass laws and ordinances binding upon all its members; it must have a coercive force capable of compelling every State to obey its common resolves whether in the way of command or of prohibition; finally, it must be strong and firm enough to make it impossible for any member to withdraw at his own pleasure the moment he conceives his private interest to clash with that of the whole body.53
It is easy to poke holes in the solution offered by Rousseau.   The most vulnerable point is Tevealed by the ques-
their very constitutions, and that in order 10 maintain themselves, they were forced to expand ceaselessly." Cf. also Political Economy, p. 318; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, tr. Nugent, Book IX, ch. ii.
52 A Lasting Peace, tr. Vaughan, pp. 38-39.
53 Ibid., pp. 59-60.
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tions: How could the federation enforce its law on the states that comprise it without waging war against them, and how likely is it that the effective force will always be on the side of the federation? To answer these questions Rousseau argues that the states of Europe are in a condition of balance sufficiently fine to prevent any one state or combination of states from prevailing over the others. For this reason, the necessary margin of force will always rest with the federation itself. 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. The arguments are convincing, but they need not be reviewed here. The practical weakness of Rousseau's recommended solution does not obscure the merit of his theoretical analysis of war as a consequence of international anarchy.
CONCLUSION
The present chapter provides a basic explanation of the third image of international relations. That there is still important ground to cover is made clear by two points. First, there is no obvious logical relation between the proposition that "in anarchy there is no automatic harmony" and the proposition that "among autonomous states war is inevitable," both of which were put forth in this chapter. The next chapter will attempt to make clear their relation to each other and to the third image. Second, although it has by now become apparent that there is a considerable interdependence among the three images, we have not systematically considered the problem of interrelating them. This problem will be considered in Chapter VIII.