Understanding international conflicts : An introduction to theory and history

This text grows out of the course on international conflicts in the modern world that I taught as part of the Harvard core curriculum for more than a decade. It is also informed by five years of experience as a policy maker at the assistant secretary level in Washington. Its aim to introduce students to the complexities of international politics by giving them a good grounding in the traditional realist theory before turning to liberal and constructivist approaches that became more prominent after the Cold War. I try to present difficult concepts in clear language with historical examples so that students will understand the basic vocabulary of international politics. Twice in the first half of the twentieth century the great powers engaged in devastating world wars that cost nearly 50 million lives. The second half of the century was wracked by a cold wars, and the threat of nuclear weapons. Why did those conflicts happen? could they happen? Could they happen again in the twenty-first century? Or will rising economic and ecological interdependence, the growth of transnational and international institutions, and the spread of democratic clues bring about a new world order? How will globalization and the information revolution influence international politics in this new century? No good teacher can honestly answer such questions with certainty, but we can provide our students with conceptual tools that will help them shape their own answers as the future unfolds. That is the purpose of this book. This is not a complex textbook with all the concepts or history a student will need. Instead, it is an example of how to think about the complex and confusing domain of international politics. It should be read not for a complete factual account, but for the way it approaches to interplay of theory and history. Neither theory nor history alone is sufficient. Those historians who believe that understanding comes from simply recounting the facts fail to make explicit the hidden principles by which they select some facts rather than others. Equally mistaken are the political scientists who became so isolated and entangled in a maze of abstract theory that they mistake their mental constructs for reality. It is only by going back and forth between history and theory that we can avoid such mistakes. This text is an example of such a dialogue between theory and history. When combined with the suggested reading, it can provide the central thread for an introductory course.