The glorification of war persists in the age of nuclear weapons. Human thought patterns do not abruptly change with the evolution of new technology and new realities. Freeman Dyson wrote that some people “believe that nuclear war is not fundamentally different from other kinds of war and that the old fashioned military virtues, preparedness, endurance and discipline, will enable us to survive it.”15
Traditional thinking about human nature, morality, and war also contributes to a proclivity for war. “Realist” thinking and just-war theory are widely influential.16 Realist thinking from Hobbes and Machiavelli on assumes that human beings are self-seeking. They try to fulfill their aims regardless of the harm to others, using “instrumental calculation” and force. Both individuals and nations are untrustworthy; force is necessary to maintain civic virtue. Just-war thinking specifies what makes a war acceptable. It must be fought against enemy forces, not unarmed civilians, and for self-defense, not conquest. However, one cannot always wait until an enemy actually strikes. It is necessary to prepare for war when others have hostile intentions, and at times one must strike first to avoid mortal danger.17 Because others’ intentions and actions are judged not only on the basis of “objective reality,” of actual conditions, but on the basis of a world view and other cultural preconditions, miscalculations are highly probable.
Both general world views and specific beliefs affect relations among nations. According to Richard Ned Lebow the Argentine leaders decided to attack the Falklands on the belief that if you throw out a colonial power in the year 1982, it cannot return. In contrast, the English response was partly dictated by their experience with Hitler and the resulting view that if you appease dictators, they will never stop.18
Pluralistic versus monolithic societies
Heterogeneity in society is essential for diminishing the chance of war as well as genocide. Unfortunately, pluralism is vulnerable in international relations, even if it exists within a society. The existence of diverse values and ethnic and religious subgroups may lead to a yearning for a larger unity and the belief that citizens and subgroups must overcome differences in facing external threat.
In addition, there are usually no institutions to restrain hostile acts against another nation, as there are internal institutions in a pluralistic society to restrain discrimination and the mistreatment of subgroups. There are no procedural rights that protect other nations, or watchdog groups that would speak out in favor of the other side. Those who do speak out may have to face the wrath of the rest of society. Even a democratic nation is therefore highly vulnerable to manipulation by leaders who create incidents or produce false information, as in the U.S. attack on Libya or the Gulf of Tonkin incident that Lyndon Johnson used to intensify the Vietnam War. The result is patriotic fervor, a uniform definition of events, and lack of critical analysis.
Leadership
Leaders have great power to shape relations between nations, but they are also the products of their societies. Characteristics of the culture and social organization – or at least the culture and organization of a powerful subgroup – shape their thinking and define their range of possibilities. Unfortunately, some of the cultural preconditions for war are present in most countries.
The leaders’ power is enlarged by their capacity to initiate a cycle of hostility. Citizens rarely criticize hostile acts of their own country (especially if they are effectively justified by leaders), but they are aroused to patriotic fervor by hostile acts against their country, even merely retaliatory ones. By generating hostile acts from others, leaders can create psychological readiness for war.
The process of leadership may also produce faulty decision making, such as groupthink.19 Cultural characteristics may contribute not only to motivations for war but also to faulty decision making. For example, leaders may underestimate an opponent on the basis of devaluative stereotypes, or the culture may produce authoritarian leadership that limits the consideration of options. But faulty decision making accounts for only a small part of the process that leads to war. Given hostile intentions, effective decison making can be more destructive.
The power of leaders to diminish hostility is also great. Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem and Nixon’s trip to China are examples. Such acts may require great courage when they break with an already predominant orientation in the group, as Sadat’s fate demonstrated. Although they can produce a drastic temporary change in perspective, further action is required for lasting change. Less dramatic actions by leaders can also be starting points for change in relations. For change to persist, the cultural elements that underlie conflict must change over time. Beginning steps are crucial, however, in initiating a cycle of positive reciprocity and crosscutting relations (see Chapter 18). A new Soviet rhetoric and new policies initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev and a changed rhetoric by Ronald Reagan, partly a response but probably also a result of societal processes including the peace movement, appear to have started such a cycle between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The national interest
Rarely is there a formal specification of what a nation’s citizens and leaders regard as the essential national interest. Hitler is an exception: in Mein Kampf he agreed with German leaders before the First World War that the national interest required the conquest of new territories.
According to Hans Morgenthau, interest is best defined as power.20 Sufficient power to balance others’ power is essential to give a state the capacity to protect its interests. The tradition of political realism, of which Morgenthau’s writings have been perhaps the most influential contemporary expression, regards international politics as a struggle for power, a contest among sovereign states. However, power ought to be regarded as a means toward an end. Stanley Hoffman suggests that “one ought to start with a definition of those ends and calculate the amount of power needed to reach them”21 Selecting and specifying goals are essential in defining the national interest.
In the United States, after World War II, national interest came to include protecting the free
