The Use Of Force In International Relations
Does the use or the threat of the use of force ultimately determine `who gets what' in international politics? Answer in light of the theories examined in class.
A prince who is of average capabilities will always keep his state unless an extraordinary and excessive force deprives him of it, and should he lose it in such a manner he will repossess it at the first setback suffered by the conqueror.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli
This quote from Machiavelli's The Prince expresses the classic realist idea that force will ultimately get you what you want on the international stage. War and the use of force are today, and have always been the main feature of world politics. This is largely due to the fact that the world has been operating on realism since ancient times - from the writings of Thucydides. To quote Joseph Heller's Catch-22 - the man with the firepower is the one who will draw it. This sums up the way international relations usually works - that anyone will use force at any time, so states must always be prepared to strike preemptively. Out of the three theories of world politics; Liberalism, Realism and Marxism, Realism is the one I will be concentrating on most in this essay as it is the one which dominates the international system and which advocates most firmly the use of force to achieve your goals. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the answers given for the use and threat of force in relation to the three main theories of international relations and to what extent its use will benefit a state.
For centuries, people have argued as to why the threat and the use of force seem to pay off. War is an issue that is the cause of much suffering and devastation world wide, but despite centuries of bloodshed, wars still go on. There are three proposed answers as to why the use of force proliferates: the belief that human nature is inherently evil; the self-help nature of the state; and that ultimately the...
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