Kenneth Waltz Part 2

How does your theory relate to the rational actor assumption? Are states rational actors, or should they be?

I do not even know what “rational actor” means empirically. A rational actor assumption may enter into a theory but has no direct, empirical representation. One can define rationality only within narrow settings, as for example in game theory, where one can define what a rational actor is and work out some outcomes under assumed conditions. Of course economists presuppose that economic actors are rational. People of course in a very loose sense prefer to do less work and get higher rewards. That is a good way of putting it now, but there is no reason in economics to think that a bunch of actors are going to be rational. Some of them are going to do better than others; some are going to be a lot smarter; some are going to be a little bit luckier than others; some are going to be better at cheating than others. All those things affect outcomes, but rationality—in its empirical form—has really little to do with it. The notion of rationality is a big help in constructing a theory, but one has to go back and forth between the theory and what goes on out in the real world. But in the real world, does anybody think “I’m rational, or you’re rational”? Let alone, that states could be rational? It has no empirical meaning.

What are the principal writings in economics that influenced your dealings with the field of international relations theory?

I think that one of the biggest influences was the contrast between pre-physiocratic and pre-Adam Smith economics, and the kinds of economic notions, concepts, and theories that developed first with the external pagephysiocratscall_made and then with Adam Smith. In fact, Adam Smith was very much indebted to the physiocrats, who we now kind of dismiss as people with very peculiar ideas. Some of their ideas were indeed peculiar, but they were the first ones to grasp the idea of an economy as such. That is to say, an economy made up of identifiable parts and an economy experiencing repeated behavior.

In one of the editions of a physiocratic book, maybe in the first edition, there was a picture of “an economy,” (the Tableau économique by François Quesnay, 1759, see image below) and of course it is a picture of the unseen and the unseeable, but it starts in the soil—that is the origins of wealth are conceived as being in soils and mines that produce gold, metals, and agricultural products. The picture then traces how these natural resources are worked up from that beginning into machines and items that can be bought, sold, used and reused, exchanged, eaten and all that.

external pagecall_madeAnd then, they introduce the notion of “circulation” in the economy. Basically, the idea that this process is constantly repeated, causing a system. That is the very beginning of the conception of the economy—one has to have a notion of a domain for that activity. In other words, one has to be able to identify the domain, mark out the borders, identify the important variables within that domain, the interconnection of those variables, and the kinds of outcomes they produce. The physiocrats were the first people within the social sciences who did that. They invented the concepts they needed, such as “propensities,” “to consume” and “to produce,” and all that. It was a great contribution. Very few people have an appreciation, as Adam Smith did, of how the physiocrats developed a system, and what that meant, compared to the sort of household economy concepts that were applied to a larger scale before. If you read the pre-physiocratic literature and compare it with what came later, the contrast is very, very sharp. It was entirely un-theoretical before, and became a theoretical literature with the physiocrats around 1760.

In 1981, you argued that “more nuclear weapons may be better,” as having nuclear weapons will deter countries from behaving aggressively. Is this still reflected in the post-Cold War situation?

Some few people take that to mean “the more, the better,” and I am probably somewhat guilty of having encouraged that view by using the subtitle “more may be better.” But the question is: how many more? I do not think that anybody believes that it would be great to have a hundred nuclear powers, or two hundred nuclear powers. I meant “more may be better” as not just two but maybe five or, as we have now, around nine nuclear states. I do not see much prospect for that number to increase dramatically. We had a maximum at about twelve, I believe, when the Soviet Union broke up and some of its parts were states that were “born nuclear”, that is, they inherited the nuclear weapons. But some of them, of course, got rid of those weapons, leaving the count at about nine nuclear states. I do not see that we are likely to have, all of a sudden, twenty or thirty, as president Kennedy was so worried about. Every now and then, we have an additional nuclear power joining what remains the world’s most exclusive club. After all, Sweden got rid of its nuclear weapons, although—as I understand it—Sweden still has the capacity to build a nuclear weapon.

Anyway, it is quite natural that countries that worry about deterring the United States would turn to nuclear weapons. I mean, when a president identifies an “axis of evil,” names three countries, and then invade one of them, the other two are bound to think: “Hey! We better have nuclear weapons because it is the only way we can deter the United States.” That is apparently what Iran began to do, and maybe already did; and that is exactly what North Korea did—and we know North Korea did it. So, the expected effect was realized in practice, at least in the case of North Korea.

Could it be fair to say, then, that having Iran as a nuclear power might be not that bad because as its position in the structure becomes different, its behavior will adapt accordingly, and they might become somewhat of a more responsible power?

Yes. It is hard for people to understand that every new nuclear state has behaved exactly the way the old nuclear states have behaved. One can describe the way all nuclear states have behaved in one word: responsibly. When the United States contemplated the Soviet Union one day having its own nuclear weapons, we were horrified by the prospect. How could we live? How could the world live with such a country as the Soviet Union—which we saw as bent on world domination—having nuclear weapons? And when China developed its own nuclear weapons, we repeated the same way of thinking—“My God! China? China is crazy!”

But in fact, if you think of the Cultural Revolution, China took very good care of its nuclear weapons. They ensured that they would not fall under the hands of the revolutionaries and came through that horrible ten-year period. The fact is that people worry that a new nuclear country, once it gets a nuclear shield, would then begin to behave immoderately or irresponsibly under the cover of its own nuclear weapons. Well, that has never happened. Every country that has had nuclear weapons has behaved moderately. If you think of the Soviet Union and China, both behaved much more radically before they had nuclear weapons. Stalin’s bravado in the face of American nuclear weapons was extremely impressive, or depressing—depending on how you want to look at it—but once they got the nuclear weapons, the Soviets calmed down. And the same thing was true for China.

So, what people fear is the opposite of what, in fact, has happened. That is rather typical in the nuclear business: we do not look at the past and say “Well gee, every nuclear country has behaved like every other nuclear country. What do we worry about?” In fact, the effect of nuclear weapons is that it moderates the behavior of their possessors; and that is very easy to understand!

But, of course, that level of moderate behavior applies to great power interactions. Countries in possession of nuclear weapons can start behaving quiet nastily and brutishly to non-nuclear powers.

Oh, but that is repeating the old worries which have never been realized. I do not understand why we repeat those expectations. I would expect an Iran with nuclear weapons to behave more moderately, not less moderately, and to take fewer risks, not more risks. By possessing nuclear weapons, you make yourself a target, and nuclear countries are very much aware of that. They have to be because once you get into the nuclear business you begin to realize it is a real serious business, and if something goes wrong… In contrast, with conventional weapons, countries worry about winning or losing. Historically, that has proven to be bearable. Germany, for example, lost World War I and then, of course, it repeated the process—that is not a learning process, but a repeating process, which is very striking and typical for a conventional warfare-world. With nuclear weapons, countries began to behave moderately. But, as we said, people do not understand it yet. For example, when India and Pakistan both got nuclear weapons—I was paying very close attention to this, of course—the expectation by journalists, by political leaders, by academics—was “this means war on the sub-continent!” Well, what it meant was: peace on the sub-continent. We know that now, but there are some people now who say “no, that is not right, because the Indians and Pakistanis continue to fight over Kashmir.” Nevertheless, as both some Indians and some Pakistanis have said, the effect of nuclear weapons was to abolish war from the heartland, not to abolish skirmishes in peripheral areas. Now, whether or not they understood in advance, or began to understand it after both got nuclear weapons, they learned they could no longer fight major wars. I mean, of course the Pakistanis have continued fighting over things like Kashmir after independence, and that fighting amounted to about 1.000 deaths, which makes it a war for most political scientists. But come on, 1.000 casualties is not a war, it is a skirmish! It shows they’re very careful to avoid all-out war for the risk of nuclear escalation.

States should accommodate to their position in the international system, which is determined in big part by the shifts in relative capabilities between states. Has the United States, in your view, adapted well to the position it is currently in? And if not, what system does it seem to respond to?

It responds to the situation all giant countries have responded to. And it responds in the very same way: it abuses its power, singling out poor, weak countries—that’s what we specialize in—and beating them up! That is what we do! Six wars in the twenty years since the 1980s; they were all cases in which we singled out small and weak countries like Grenada or Panama, and we proceeded to beat them up. It is sad, but this is a typical behavior of powers that are dominant, or used to be dominant in their regions and now are globally dominant. The United States is the globally dominant power, and that is why there is only one way that other states can deter the United States: by acquiring nuclear weapons. Nobody can deter the United States conventionally anymore because we dispose of a military budget that is nearly the equal of all the other countries in the world combined. So, how can anybody deter the United States without resorting to nuclear weapons? They cannot.

Does it mean that, by bullying smaller countries, the US has in fact adapted well to its position in the system?

That is what you would expect dominant powers to do. One does not like it; I do not like it; and I am sure the countries that experience the bullying do not like it; but it is expected behavior. That is the way countries behave when they have dominant power—globally or within their region.

In 2002, you wrote about globalization. The fact is a contradiction in terms, I would say, because globalization does not really matter much for Realism. So, why do you still feel the need to write about its good or bad attributes?

I was really writing about interdependence, which is now called globalization. There was a very marked tendency, and it was very common for people—political scientists and economists—to refer to the world as increasingly “interdependent” and to draw inferences from that supposed condition. I first developed this idea when I was the only political scientist in a faculty seminar, while all the other members were economists. That seminar was led by a person named external pageRaymond Vernoncall_made, who was a big name in interdependence. I made some comments about how little interdependent the world was and the conception that high inequality is low interdependence. And I still believe that. I think it is a simple truth that in a world of inequality (and bear in mind that inequalities across states are much greater than the inequalities within states), interdependence is low. In other words, some states are highly independent and other states are highly dependent on those states that dispose of greater economic or military power than the others do. I think that is still extremely important, and not extremely well understood.

How does your theory apply to the dynamics one can witness on the African continent?

You know, I did not set out to be an international politics person. I started out to be a political philosopher; but there were not many jobs available, and they were in the field of international politics, so that is how I ended up in international politics. When I did, my wife and I realized you cannot pay attention to everything, so I said to myself “one continent that I am going to leave aside is Africa.” I preferred to concentrate on Europe and China. I did a pretty good deal of work on China because I saw it ripe to become one of the most important parts of the world of which I knew nothing. So, I proceeded to do a lot of work on China in order to know something about it. But Africa is kind of a blank spot for me, apart from casual observation. Even though, I would say that the whole notion of anarchy applies very well to Africa.

In fact, a criticism people used to make to me was that Africa was clearly an anarchic arena, and yet African states did not fight much among themselves. How, then, would a Realist like myself explain that? Well, I did by invoking external pageTurney-Highcall_made’s book in anthropology, which was published—I believe—in the 1920s. There, he made the very valid point that countries have to obtain a certain level of self-consciousness as being a political entity, and a certain level of competence before they are able to fight one another. Turney-High’s illustration was very clear with his study of the peoples he referred to as the “Californians,” who were such a primitive people that they did not have the ability to form groups or fight as a group. A consciousness and competence at a certain level is needed before a group is able to systematically impose on another group—whether in the form of warfare or in other ways. I think that, for a long time, Africa was in that condition, and that, as it proceeds away from that condition, African countries will be able to fight wars against one another. In a historical sense, though, that is an implication of advancement.

Kenneth Neal Waltz (born 1924) is a member of the faculty at Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars of international relations (IR) alive today.He is one of the founders of neorealism, or structural realism, in international relations theory. Among his publications are Man, the State, and War (1959) and Theory of International Politics (1979).

Related links

• Read Waltz’s The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better (Adelphi Papers 171, 1981) external pageherecall_made (html)
• Read Waltz’s Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory (Journal of International Affairs 44 1990) external pageherecall_made (pdf)
• Read Waltz’s The Emerging Structure of International Politics (International Security 18 (2) 1993) external pageherecall_made (pdf)
• Read Waltz’s Evaluating Theories (American Political Science Review 91 (4) 1997) external pageherecall_made (pdf)
• Read Waltz’s Globalization and Governance (PS: Political Science & Politics 1999) external pageherecall_made (pdf)
• Read Waltz’s Structural Realism after the Cold War (International Security 25 (1) 2000) external pageherecall_made (pdf)
• Read Scott Sagan, Richard K. Betts and Waltz’s discussion A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster? (Journal of International Affairs 60 (2), 2007) external pageherecall_made (pdf)