Hedley Bull and His Contribution to Author(s): Stanley Hoffman Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 62, No. 2 (Spring, 1986), pp. 179-195 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2618360 . Accessed: 15/10/2013 06:20

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This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions HedleyBull and his contributionto international relations*

STANLEYHOFFMANNt

It was an honourand a privilegeto be asked to reviewHedley Bull's contributionto thestudy of internationalpolitics. Over theyears we had discoveredmany affinities. We had a commonway of lookingat thetheory and practiceof internationalpolitics, evenif we did not alwaysgive the same answersto thequestions we bothasked. I was always impressedby the extraordinaryclarity and lucidityof his arguments,and by theirfairness-by his way of takinginto account all thepoints in his adversary'scase, and all the objectionsto his own argumentsand assumptions.Both of us looked at a disciplinethat had developed in the United Statesafter the Second World as outsiders who did not support all the premises of its main practitionersand theoreticians. I was alwaysan admirerof theextraordinary sweep of Hedley Bull's mind,and yet when I reviewedhis work I was leftwith an inevitablesense of incompleteness.He accomplishedso much,but there were also so manymore directions in whichhe might have gone and in whichhe was beginningto go. The moststriking aspect of his workis itsextraordinary unity and thecoherence of his approach: the unity of method and of substance,and the consistencyand continuityof his concernabout internationalsociety and thosecontemporary issues which are decisivefor the survivalof an internationalsociety. However, therewere also significanttensions in his work: theygave it its density,and makeit particularly instructiveand thought-provoking. The firstpart of this essay will be devotedto Hedley Bull's worldview, and parttwo to his writingsabout thecontemporary world political scene.

Hedley Bull's world view The firstquestion to be takenup hereis, wheredoes Hedley Bull belongwithin the studyof internationalrelations? The second is his unityof methodand substance,to whichI have alreadyalluded; and thethird is Bull's view of internationalsociety. At firstsight it appearsto be obvious whereHedley Bull fitsinto the disciplineof internationalrelations. He seemsto takeup a positionclose to realism,the school of thoughtthat looks at internationalrelations as the politicsof statesin theirexternal aspects,to quote fromhis own accountof 's approach.' Realism starts by rejectingall formsof utopianism,as Bull himselfdid. His mostmagisterial criticism of utopianismis to be foundin The anarchicalsociety, where he disposed decisivelyof such conceptsas world ,a new medievalism,a regionalreconstruction of

Hedley Bull, MontagueBurton Professor of InternationalRelations at OxfordUniversity since 1977, died on 18 May 1985. This is the revisedtext of the 1985 CyrilFoster lecture, delivered at Oxfordon 17 October 1985. t StanleyHoffmann is Professorof French Civilization and Presidentof the Center for European Studies at HarvardUniversity. 1. Introductionto MartinWight, Systems of states (Leicester:.Leicester University Press, 1977).

0020-5850/86/2/0179-17$3.00(0)1986International Affairs

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 180 HEDLEY BULL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS theworld, and revolutionaryschemes for change.2 Even in his firstbook, The control ofthe arms race, he had been incisivelycritical of proposalsfor world disarmament.3 And yet thingsare not so simple.Unlike manydestroyers of utopias and many realists-I have in mind George Kennan and -Bull nevershowed great enthusiasmfor giving policy advice to usually indifferentprinces. Many contemporaryrealists have been attractedto policy guidancelike mothsto a flame. Bull had no particularobjection to scholarsgiving policy advice as long as it wentto a morally acceptable government;4he himselfserved as an adviser to the British governmenton armscontrol matters for several years. Yet, on thewhole, he showed more tolerancethan enthusiasmfor this task. His attitudewas similarto that of RaymondAron: in thefield of internationalrelations, as indeedin politicalscience in general,what Aron called 'wise counsel' was quite naturallyderived from scholarly research,but themain purpose of scholarshipwas to advanceknowledge. To be sure,not all realistshave felta need to outdo the bureaucratson theirown ground (certainlyHans Morgenthaunever did). But therewere two other very importantdifferences between Bull's approachand thatof therealists. The firstcame fromhis distrustof therealist model of statebehaviour, which lies behindthe realists' prescriptions.Morgenthau was theone who putit most forcefully in thefirst few pages of Politicsamong nations:the strugglefor power and (5th edn, New York: Knopf, 1973): one can derivefrom the studyof history,from the logic of interstate relationsin the internationalmilieu, and fromthe geopoliticalposition of a state, somethinglike a rationalset of rulesfor the conduct of itsforeign policy. Instances of departurefrom such rational behaviour are treated,in the realists' works, as aberrations.Hedley Bull was no believerin theordinary rationality of states, nor in the usefulnessof developingprescriptions for rational action, because he was even more pessimisticthan the realists.To them,departures from the normare exceptions;to Hedley Bull, stupidity,folly, miscalculations and mischiefwere alwayspossible. The secondmajor point of difference between Bull and therealists lay in hispoint of departure.He did not beginhis study,as therealists do, by lookingat thestate and its power,a conceptabout whichhe has ratherlittle to say. (And whathe does say about power is actuallyquite close to therealist emphasis on militarypower as theheart of the matter.)Bull's whole body of work takesas its point of departurethe group,or milieu,or 'ensemble'which states form by interacting.It is theinternational system, and,above all,international society. When, in hisfamous article attacking the so-called scientificapproach, he drewup a listof important questions to be askedin thestudy of internationalpolitics, Bull's firstquestion was: 'does thecollectivity of sovereign states constitutea politicalsociety or system,or does it not?'5Similarly, in his critiqueof E. H. Carr's Twentyyears crisis, 1919-39: an introductionto thestudy of international relations(2nd edn,London: Macmillan,1946), written thirty years after its publication, he concluded that 'in the course of demonstratinghow appeals to an overriding internationalsociety subserve the special interests of theruling group of powers, Carr

2. Hedley Bull, The anarchicalsociety: a studyof orderin worldpolitics (London: Macmillan,1977). 3. Hedley Bull, The controlof the arms race: disarmamentand armscontrol in thenuclear age (2nd edn, New York: Praeger,1965). 4. In 'Strategicstudies and its critics',World Politics, July 1968, Bull statesthat being an adviserto a governmentis, fora scholaror a scientist,unbecoming or not dependingon 'whatwe takethe moral nature of thatgovernment and its objectivesto be' (p. 599). 5. Hedley Bull, 'Internationaltheory: the case fora classicalapproach', in Klaus Knorrand JamesN. Rosenau, eds., Contendingapproaches to internationalpolitics(Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1969), p. 27.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 181 jettisonsthe idea of internationalsociety itself. This is the idea with which a new analysisof theproblem of international relations should now begin.'6Bull's interestin thisidea was constant.Between the late 1950s and the 1980s,American scholarship movedaway fromgeneral theories towards greater specialization, and it has tendedto split into two groups-the strategistsand the political economists. Bull never separatedhis interest in strategicquestions from his investigation of the nature, history and evolutionof internationalsociety.

Method and substance Thus we come to whatI calledthe unity of methodand substancein Bull's work.The mostfruitful way of graspingthis is to startwith his critiqueof thescientific approach to internationalrelations theory: his rejectionof 'propositionsbased on logical or mathematicalproof, or upon strictempirical procedures of verification'.7 He attacked thepractitioners of thescientific approach for a numberof reasons.In thefirst place, this method kept its practitionersfrom asking what were, accordingto him, the essentialquestions about internationalrelations.8 The practitionersof the scientific approachseemed to Bull likecharacters who, having lost a watchin thedark, look forit undera lighteven thoughthey did not lose it therebecause the lighthappens to be there.As Bull putit himself, their method 'keeps them as remotefrom the substance of internationalpolitics as the inmatesof a Victoriannunnery were fromthe studyof sex.'9Secondly, he dislikedthe scientific method because he thoughtits practitioners were obsessed by the quest for a far greaterdegree of precisionthan the field of internationalrelations allows. Hence his harsh critique of Karl Deutsch's 'measurements',which, according to Bull, ignoredthe connections between the units being measuredand the significanceof what was being counted. Hence also his sarcasmabout the abstractmodel-building technique displayed by Morton Kaplan, whose models, accordingto Bull, were scientificallydisguised versions of reality whicheither lacked rigourand consistencyprecisely because rigourand consistency are not to be foundin internationalreality, or achievedthose qualities at thecost of a completedivorce from reality. They were not like economic models, which often manageto remainnot only faithfulto, but capable of explaining,the way in which economic variables interact.Thirdly, Bull lhoughtthat the practitionersof the scientificmethod were obsessed by an urgeto predictand to resolvethe issues which they tackled,and he accused them of brashness.These criticismswere addressed primarilyto thebehaviourist school of the mid-1960s. In 'Internationaltheory' he 1kindly exemptedfrom blanket condemnation such kindred souls as RaymondAron, and myself.However, in hismajor work on The theoryof international relations (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979), Kenneth Waltz himselfsubsequently became a primeexample of the veryapproach which Hedley Bull had condemned manyyears before. Mercifully, Hedley sparedWaltz's book, which,as faras I know, he neverreviewed.10 6. Hedley Bull,'The twentyyears crisis thirty years on', InternationalJournal,Vol. 24, No. 4, Aut. 1969, p. 638. 7. Bull, 'Internationaltheory', p. 21. 8. Hedley Bull, 'New directionsin thetheory of internationalrelations', International Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 279. 9. Bull, 'New directionsin the theoryof internationalrelations', p. 26. 10. On thebasis of his remarksabout gametheory in 'Strategicstudies and itscritics', pp. 601-2, one can presumethat he would havebeen equallysarcastic about currentattempts by championsof 'rationalchoice theory'to use game theorynot just 'to illustratepoints that are independentlyarrived at' but 'in orderto determinesolutions' to problemsof internationalrelations.

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Whatwas his own preference?He talkedabout 'a scientificallyimperfect procedure of perceptionand intuition',which sounds remarkablylike Max Weber's conceptof understanding."In Bull's view, in otherwords, beyond the causal explanationof eventsor ofsequences of events, the social scientist still has to travelone morestep and tryto grasp the meaningof the whole; and this requires,above all, judgementin the constructionand testing of hypotheses. Interpretation,the attempt to seize the meaningof what has been explained,is an artisticenterprise rather than a scientificone. Unlikemany of his colleagues in thefield, therefore, and unlikeKenneth Waltz in his lastbook, Bull did not beginhis studyof internationalrelations with the requirementsof method. (Waltz, for instance, begins by layingdown a veryinteresting and rigorousnotion of theory,and then,by applyingit to internationalrelations, managesto leavemost of the substance of the field outside the straitjacket.) Bull started withthe questions which were essentialto him: questionsabout societyand culture, about the place of war and the conceptionsof it, about the relationsbetween the influenceof the system and thenature of the state in thedetermination of events, about theright of statesto intervenein each other'saffairs-and so on. To beginwith such questions is to realize,first, that they can onlybe understoodby referenceto theworks of the political philosophers who havediscussed and sharpened them.Secondly, they can only be answeredcomparatively across time and place; for instance,to be able to talkintelligently about what looks likethe extraordinary amount of interventionthat occurs in the present-dayinternational system, or about the seeminglyoriginal network of contemporarytransnational relations, it is usefulto be able to comparethe present system with past ones-something which led Hedley Bull to concludethat the amount of intervention today was notall thatunusual, and thatthe networkof transnationalrelations was far less originalthan many have claimed. Thirdly,to beginwith these questions is to understandthat they can onlybe evaluated by referencenot merelyto thestate's power but also to therules which states observe, and particularlyto thatquite specialcategory of ruleswhich constitutes . Bull called this approach a traditionalone, and it was indeed traditionalif one considersthat the studyof the historyof ideas and of diplomatichistory is thevery thingfrom which the modern scientific approach had triedto emancipatethe discipline of internationalrelations; but it was a traditionalapproach at theservice of as rigorous an understandingof international relations as thefield allows. In thisway, Bull's work is verydifferent from that of traditional international lawyers or diplomatichistorians. His veryconcern for a systematicunderstanding of international relations leads him, as it had led RaymondAron, to insiston conceptualdistinctions in orderto makea clear analysispossible. In The anarchicalsociety one findsa whole forestof distinctions: betweenthe different meanings and kindsof order in internationalaffairs, between the differentmeanings of justice, between the differentfunctions of war, between interventionand inequality,different types of balanceof power,and so on.

Hedley Bull's humanism Ultimately,Hedley Bull's workis a blendof intelligent social scienceand humanism.I insiston his humanismbecause it takes so manyforms. Predominantly, it takes a Weberianform. Weber wanted the social scientistto respectand empathizewith the

11. Bull, 'Internationaltheory', p. 20.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 183 meaningswhich political actors gave to theiractions, just as he wantedhim to be aware of and to highlightthe frequentdivorce between actors' intentionsand the results obtained.It is becauseof thisdivorce that it is possibleto talkabout a system-which mightbe describedas a netof interactingvariables which often foul up theintentions ofthe actor-but it is becausehuman beings are the actors and havethe intentions that thereis no needto look at thesystem in theway in which,for instance, Morton Kaplan seemsto have done: as a divinitywhich determines the acts of thevarious players as if theywere puppetson a string.To illustratethis point one can say, as Bull oftendid, thata balanceof power in theinternational society, or thecurrent balance of terror, can develop even thoughtheir creation or preservationwas not the deliberatepolicy or intentionof all theparticipants in internationalsociety. On theother hand, how this balance will turnout, how stableit will be, will dependto a verylarge extent on the participants'intentions and policies. Humanismis also manifestin theextraordinary density of the historical knowledge in Bull's works,particularly the most recent ones-something which is notto be found in theworks of manyof his Americancolleagues. Lastly, humanism is manifestin the importanceof moralconcerns in Bull's works.

Ethics and internationalrelations Hedley Bull's writingson ethicsand internationalrelations are moresuggestive than systematic.The interestshown in ethicsby specialistsin internationalrelations has increasedenormously in the last ten years,as Bull himselfnoted. His own concern withthis issue startedmuch earlier,but even in his work an increasingemphasis on ethicscan be tracedin the last yearsof his life.His thoughtson the subjectcan be summarizedas follows. First,as faras thestudy of international relations is concerned,international society has a moralbasis; indeed,Bull's concernfor international society and his interestin moral conceptions are inextricablylinked. The beliefs of the members of the internationalsociety cannot be reducedto theirinterests and strategiesof power-a reductionfor which Bull criticizesE. H. Carrsharply, particularly in pointingout that the famousprinciple pacta sunt servanda cannot be describedmerely as a cynical expressionof theinterests of thestrong. According to Bull,the beliefs of the members of the internationalsociety influencethe historicalevolution of that society. Consequently,the study of international relations must address the question of moral beliefs,in particularin orderto establishwhich beliefs represent a consensusof the members,what the substance of that consensus is, andwhere its limits and weak points can be found.This was a taskwhich Bull performedrigorously in thelast years of his life,both as regardedconceptions of justice in thepresent international system12 and in his essayon SouthAfrica. There, taking up theargument of SouthAfrica's defenders, who complainedthat the South Africangovernment was the victimof a double standard,he argued: thereis not a world consensusagainst communist oppression, or oppressionby militarygovernments, or of one Asian or Africanethnic group by another, comparable to that which exists against this survivingsymbol of a white supremacismthat all othersocieties in the world, to differentdegrees and in differentways, have repudiatedover the last three decades . .. Whilethis should 12. Hedley Bull,Justice in internationalrelations, Hagey Lectures,12-13 Oct. 1983 (Waterloo,Ont.: Universityof Waterloo,1984).

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not lead us to failto protestagainst . . . other[violations of humanrights,] we should also recognize that it is not now possible to unite the international communityon any other basis than that of a clear repudiationof white supremacism.13 Secondly,Bull believedthat the social scientistmust recognize that there can be no value-freeinquiry; and, he added, if it were possible it would be of littleinterest- anotherreason forBull's distrustof the purelyscientific approach.14 Nevertheless, while the presenceof values is one thing,to smugglethem in or to peddle them explicitlyis quite another. There are many warnings in Bull's work against this-againstmodels of thefuture into which the writers inject their value preferences by indulgingin excessive'salvationism', and againstmoral preaching in writingson armscontrol and internationaljustice which oversimplify highly complex moral issues and disregardsome of the costs of the solutionsthey recommend. Indeed, Bull is critical of moral generalizations.To him they are impossible, because of the complexityof concrete situations and becauseof the very difficulty of the choices faced by statesmen.For instance,the avoidance of war is not alwaysthe highest imperative (Bull was writingabout Munich); justiceand ordercannot always be reconciled;the universalpromotion of human rights can be 'subversiveof coexistence'because of the absenceof anysubstantive consensus in thisfield.'5 Bull was painfullyaware not only ofthe gap betweenmoral imperatives and political reality but also ofthe multiplicity of moralperspectives in the contemporaryworld. As he pointedout in his critiquesof worksby E. B. F. Midgley'6and MichaelWalzer,17 neithernatural law nor Walzer's brandof liberalindividualism is acceptableas thetruth: for instance, they have been rejectedby revolutionariesand by absolutepacifists. On the otherhand, as earlyas p. 25 of The controlof the arms race we findthe followingstatement: 'Moral judgments. . . shouldnever be overriddenor sacrificed'. The social scientistsneed to ask broad moralquestions. These questions-about the role of thegreat powers, or theclaims of theThird World, or thevirtues of thestates system-Bull always asked. He did so because he believedthat moral issues were susceptibleto rationalinvestigation, and could evenbe settledif the parties shared the samemoral premises or ifthe premises involved were universally held-the respectfor humanlife, for property and the sanctityof agreements.18Both the multiplicityof moralalternatives and thepossibility of moralargument led Hedley Bull to demand that social scientistsand philosophersdealing with moral issues in foreignaffairs should tryto transcendsubjectivity and lay out the foundationsof theirpositions. (This was therationale behind his critiqueof MichaelWalzer, whom he commended forhis determinationto revivejust war theory,but blamedfor refusing to explainhis own moral theoryfrom the groundup.) However, it mustbe said thatBull himself neverdid lay out fullythe foundations of his own moralposition; he also recognized that,ultimately, there is oftenno rationalway of choosingbetween moral ends.'9

13. Hedley Bull, 'The West and South Africa',Daedalus, Vol. 111, No. 2, Spr. 1982, pp. 255-70, at p. 266. 14. Bull, 'New directionsin thetheory of internationalrelations', p. 284. 15. Bull,Justice in internationalrelations, p. 13. 16. Hedley Bull,'Natural law and internationalrelations', BritishJournalofInternationalStudies, Vol. 5, 1979,pp. 171-81. 17. Hedley Bull, 'Recapturingthe just war forpolitical theory', World Politics, Vol. 31, No. 4, July1979, pp. 588-99. 18. Bull, 'Naturallaw and internationalrelations', p. 180. 19. Bull, 'Natural law and internationalrelations', p. 181.

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The thirdpoint to be madeabout Hedley Bull's thoughtson ethicsand international relationsis thatthis omission did not preventhim from making explicit prescriptions (injust the same way thathe would haveliked a 'self-proclaimedrealist' like E. H. Carr to havemade out a moralcase againstMunich). It is notsurprising to findtwo sources behindBull's own explicitprescriptions: the natural law tradition,and thevalues of the West.Natural law, 'a doctrinewhich proclaims that rules are valid among all mankind quite irrespectiveof the social and culturalfacts of the time',he foundparticularly interesting,'now that there exists a global internationalsociety that has clearly outgrownits originallyEuropean social or culturalbase, .. . and doubts may be entertainedas to whetherany genuinelyuniversal society or culturehas yettaken its place'.20It was the values of the West which he evoked in his argumentfor 'some degreeof commitment to thecause ofindividual rights on a worldscale',21 as well as in his condemnationof South Africaand of Western,primarily American, arguments for supportingthe white regime there.22It is natural law, tempered by his awarenessof the limits and fragilityof consensus in therealm of justice, which informs his recommendationsabout the conceptof justicewe should embracein thepresent internationalsystem. Taken together,Bull's writingsshow thathe heeded his own adviceabout the need to go beyondthe language of the sociology of moral belief to that of morals-to thatof rightsand duties.

Hedley Bull's view of internationalsociety We now come to his view of internationalsociety. Here is where Hedley Bull's originalitylies: it is societyrather than systemwhich he, virtuallyalone among contemporarytheorists of internationalaffairs, stresses and studies.System means contactbetween states and theimpact of one stateon another;society means (in Bull's words) common interestsand values, common rules and institutions.His point of departureis whathas sometimesbeen calledthe Grotian approach. More will be said aboutthis below. Here we findone ofthe differences between Bull andAron or Waltz: unlike him, they startwith the internationalsystem. A second featureof Bull's originality,a consequenceof his emphasison societyover system,is his theoryof change,which is verydifferent from that of Waltz or RobertGilpin. Gilpin attributes changein internationalaffairs to the rise and fallof hegemonicpowers; Waltz sees changeas theresult of shifts in thedistribution of power between states, leading from a bipolar to a multipolarsystem, or vice versa. In contrast,Bull is interestedin the culturalchange which produces a differentperception of common interestsin a contextof coexistence and cooperation.He is,in otherwords, emphasizing the passage froma meresystem to a society,or froma narrowersociety to one thatincludes many more members.He is also interestedin the effectsof major upheavals like the Reformation,the FrenchRevolution and the RussianRevolution, which introduced drasticallynew beliefsand rulesinto theinternational society. Whatwas theorigin of Bull's concernfor the international society? It seemsto have startedwith his dissatisfactionwith alternativeapproaches. Bull rejecteda purely Hobbesian view ofinternational affairs as a stateof war, or a struggleof all againstall. He refutedHobbes by usingsome of Hobbes's own arguments,so as to explainwhy the stateof war betweennations was more bearablethan the stateof war between

20. Bull, 'Natural law and internationalrelations', p. 171. 21. Bull,Justicein internationalrelations, p. 13. 22. Bull, 'The West and South Africa',pp. 269-70.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 186 HEDLEY BULL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS individuals,and whythere was thereforeno need fora universalLeviathan (the state's abilityto protectthe industryof its subjects,the lesser vulnerabilityof the state comparedto thenaked individual because of its greater power, the unevenness of states comparedto the puny equalityof individualsin the stateof nature).23Moreover unlike the Hobbesians-Bull denied thatit was only the existenceof centralstate power which could make possible the emergenceof a society,or could preventits collapse or disintegration;anarchy is compatiblewith society, because the state is not theonly reason for obeying rules in society.In one ofhis firstpublished essays on the British commonwealthof nations, he noted the incompatibilityof theories of Realpolitikwith the realityof a group of stateswhose mutualrelations were not inherentlyantagonistic.24 On theother hand, Bull also rejectswhat he considersto be Kant'suniversalism and cosmopolitanism,and he criticizes Kant for inconsistency25although, in my opinion,he misreadsKant, who was muchless cosmopolitanand universalistin his writingson internationalaffairs than Bull suggests.Kant never advocated a worldstate or government,after all, and Bull failedto distinguishhere between two conceptions whichMichael Walzer, for instance, separates carefully: cosmopolitanism, which tries to overcomethe barriers to theunity of mankind set by theexistence of nations and by national borders; and what Walzer calls the 'legalist paradigm',which looks at internationalrelations as a societyof states with mutual rights and duties,a conception whichis not only similarto Bull's but actuallyquite close to Kant's. The secondsource of Bull's viewof international society is hisintellectual sympathy for historicalauthors whose work stressedsociety even at a time when (as he recognized)reality was reallymore like a junglethan a society-the theologiansand internationallawyers of the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies, and particularly Grotius.Clearly there is a parallelbetween these men, writing at a timewhen, amidst considerablestrife and chaos, a radicallynew systemwas being createdout of the disintegrationof themedieval one, and today'sexpansion of theinternational system into the firsttruly global one. Bull's approachto the studyof internationalsociety is markedby one important tension,which givesrise to a numberof unansweredquestions. This is the tension betweenhis realismand his emphasison the rules and institutionswhich dampen anarchy-internationallaw, thebalance of power, even war as a meansof preserving a balance,the role of thegreat powers with their special responsibilities to international society,the rule of non-intervention.He also emphasizesthe communityof culture thatmakes international society possible and requires,if not ideological homogeneity, at least the tolerationof ideologicaldifferences. In otherwords, he stresseselements which,taken to an extreme,cause himto appearperilously close to theconstruction of Hans Kelsen,which he himselfcriticizes. Kelsen analysedinternational law, both as the productof a systemin whichstates interact in pursuitof theirseparate interests, and as theproduct of an organizedsociety which collectively delegates functions to its membersfor the enforcement of thecommon good. In one of his verylast works, on internationaljustice, Hedley Bull wroteabout 'theconcept of a worldcommon good' and about the need, 'in the absence of a supranational world authority, . . . for particularstates to seekas wide a consensusas possible,and on thisbasis to act as local

23. Hedley Bull, 'Society and anarchyin internationalrelations', in HerbertButterfield and Martin Wight,eds., Diplomaticinvestigations (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966),pp. 35-50. 24. Hedley Bull, 'What is the Commonwealth?',World Politics, Vol. 11, No. 4, July1959. 25. Bull, 'Societyand anarchy',pp. 48ff;The anarchicalsociety, p. 262.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 187 agentsof a worldcommon good.' In thenext sentence, however, we arereminded that 'statesare notoriouslyself-serving in theirpolicies, and rightlysuspected when they purportto act on behalfof theinternational community as a whole'; such a pretence can be 'in facta menaceto internationalorder'.26 The sameoscillation can be foundin some of his writingsabout questionsof militarysecurity: in The controlof thearms race,Bull's concern,he tellsus, is not nationalsecurity but international security, the securityof thesociety of statesas a whole-a conceptwhich I myself,with a view of internationalrelations a littlemore Hobbesian and less Grotianthan Bull's, have always found difficultto understand,since in the matterof security'international society' consistsof memberswho distrustone anotherand spend most of theirtime if not actuallyattacking each otherthen at leastprotecting themselves from attack. Bull's own kindof realism,however, was neverleft far behind. He alwaysmanaged to correcthis Grotian inclinationsby an infusionof what he called Oppenheim's pluralism.As a readerof OppenheimBull had commentedon the inadequacyof a domestic model for the understandingof the nature of internationallaw or internationalsociety; and he stressedthe role war plays as an ordinaryinstrument of statepolicy ratherthan as a crimecondemned by internationalsociety or a sanction enforcingthat society's principles. Bull had commentedthat the adherence of states to internationallaw does not meanthat they respect it. He had expressedhis scepticism aboutwhat he called'the neo-idealist fashions' of today-the recenttendency of some Americanscholars to depreciatethe continuingimportance of forcein international affairsand to celebratethe emergence of a transnationalsociety.27 Bull was aware of thefact that in theperiod following the First World War therevival of Grotianismhad led to a utopianattempt to reformthe international milieu into a societyin whichwar would be bannedunless it was an exerciseof collectivesecurity-an effortthat may have been detrimentalto theplacing of limitson the conductof war (Bull citessuch cases as theItalian invasion of Abyssinia, the Nuremberg trials, and theKorean war).28 The questionsthat Hedley Bull leftunanswered are of two kinds.In thefirst place theyhave to do withthe delicate balance between Kelsen, or Grotius,and Oppenheim, or Hobbes-the distinctionbetween society and system,which Bull neverexpounded systematically.He showed thatanarchy was compatiblewith society; but how much society,as itwere, is likelyto flourishin an anarchicalstructure? Conversely, could the factorsof society ever hope to overcomethe antagonisms which are built into and grow out of an anarchicalstructure? Bull's own worklaid stresson theemergence of a universalinternational society, a society previouslydominated by Westernstates and graduallyextended, first to non-Westernstates which acceptedEuropean values, and thento all the new states which emergedfrom decolonization after the Second World War. This expansion raiseda questionwhich Bull had only begunto addressin his mostrecent work: can one have a universal society without a common cultural framework,with a cosmopolitanideal thatis only an ideal,indeed, one thatis not evenshared by all the culturalsystems? Bull's final answer was yes, so long as thereare still common interests. The secondkind of questionwhich Hedley Bull leftunexplored, and whichis sorely

26. Bull,Justice in internationalrelations, p. 14. 27. Hedley Bull,'Civilian power Europe: a contradictionin terms?',Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 21, Nos. 1-2, Sept.-Dec. 1982,at pp. 150-1. 28. Hedley Bull, 'The Grotian conceptionof internationalsociety', in Butterfieldand Wight,eds., Diplomaticinvestigations, pp. 51-73.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 188 HEDLEY BULL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS missed,concerns the distinction,not in theorybut in internationlreality, between differenttypes of internationalsociety, in the way in which Martin Wight had distinguisheddifferent kinds of states systems.From the point of view of the internationalorder (and thiswas always Hedley Bull's), theremust be a difference betweenan internationalsociety endowed with a commonculture and one whose only cementis providedby the(perhaps very short-lived) common interests of its members. From thatsame pointof view,much depends on thekind of culturewhich underlies a giveninternational society, on thenature of its values, and on how broad or deep the cultureis. These are questionswhich Bull had only begunto addressin his writings about thepresent-day international system.

Hedley Bull and the contemporaryworld scene The threeaspects of Hedley Bull's work thatwill be takenup hereare, first,Bull's analysisof the nature of the contemporary world scene; secondly, Bull and thenuclear conundrum;and thirdly,Bull's writingson thesuperpowers and thepower balance. Bull's analysisof thenature of thecontemporary world scene is extremelyrich; but it is markedby considerableambivalence and unresolvedtension. The questionhe asked was, what is the degreeof societypresent today? His replyis complex and ambiguous.29He produces considerableevidence to show that therehas been a dangerousweakening of the elementsof societyin the currentsystem. He liststhe followingfactors. First, obviously, there is the superpowerconflict. Surprisingly enough, this is the factorBull writesleast about, perhapsbecause he believed his Americancolleagues were writing about almost nothing else; thereis particularlylittle in his work about the ideologicalaspects of the superpowerconflict. In the second place,Bull findsthat the balance of power has beenpreserved, but, in contrast to thatof thenineteenth century, it continueswithout a commonculture as itsbasis. Thirdly, in additionto the balance of power, thereis now mutualnuclear deterrence; but Bull findsit extremelyfragile, for reasons to be mentionedbelow. The fourthfactor in the weakening of currentsociety that Bull discusses, particularlyin hismost recent work, is the'revolt against the West', the positions taken by thedeveloping nations. This revolthe sees as triplydangerous. It is dangerous,first, because it entailsa partialrepudiation of the pre-existingrules and institutionsof internationalsociety. He mentionspractices by ThirdWorld stateswhich violate the principleof diplomaticimmunity; he refersalso to multipleinterventions by some of thesestates in theaffairs of others, as ifthe barriers against intervention existed against intrusionsby the West only. In his 1983 lectureson justice at the Universityof Waterloo,he added thatmany countries of the ThirdWorld repudiatethe Western view thatthe rightswhich states enjoy in internationallaw mustbe compatiblewith theirobligations to the internationalcommunity. The revolt againstthe West is dangerous,secondly, because it resultsfrom and contributesto theincreasing cultural heterogeneityof internationalsociety. In a conferenceon internationalrelations held in April 1968 at Bellagio-the conferenceattended by Aron and Morgenthauwhere Hedley Bull complained about the primitivecharacter of 's theory-he remarkedthat we were now livingin a worldwideinternational system thathad 'outrunits culturalbasis'. In his lectureson justicehe gave as examplesof

29. This analysisis derivedfrom his essaysin Hedley Bull and ,eds., The expansionof internationalsociety (Oxford: Clarendon,1984), and in Hedley Bull, ed., Interventionin worldpolitics (Oxford: Clarendon,1984).

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 189 increasingcultural heterogeneity the differencesbetween Western and ThirdWorld conceptionsof self-determination,human rightsand economic justice. Lastly, the revoltagainst the West is dangerousbecause it increases what might be calledstructural heterogeneity,on two levels.On the one hand,as he pointedout, manyof the new statesare statesby courtesyonly. And at thelevel of the system,the demands of the ThirdWorld aim at attainingnot onlygreater racial, economic, and culturalequality, but also a redistributionof power,which, according to Bull, raisesinsoluble issues, particularlyin themilitary realm where the need fororder (he had in mindthe need to preservethe world fromfurther nuclear proliferation) must sometimessupersede demandsfor justice.30

Hedley Bull's optimism Ultimately,however, Bull's replyto thisquestion-what is thedegree of international societytoday-is reasonablyoptimistic. Here again,several factors must be listed. First,the attractivenessof war as an instrumentof policy has diminished,at least betweenthe superpowers. Secondly, the superpowers themselves have set up various arrangementsin orderto preservepeace, although these arrangements-which include the Non-ProliferationTreaty of 1968-are not always in strictconformity with justice. Third come the many influenceswhich reinforcethe norm of non- intervention.Bull deemedthese forces more powerful than the opposite forces which weaken it, and he presentedthem as a mixtureof externalpower factors,domestic ones, and ideologicalor culturalbeliefs. However, manyof the factorswhich deter interventionare themselvesambiguous, because they are also facetsof the revolt againstthe West: manybarriers against intervention were set up by anticolonialist actors,by therevolt against racism, by thedemands for greater economic justice. This ambiguitycomplicates the problem. The fourthfactor to mention,according to Bull, is the gradualacceptance by the non-Westernstates of the basic elementsof internationalsociety, despite all the breaches of it which I have mentionedabove. Bull thoughtthat such essential ingredientsof internationalsociety as theprinciple of statesovereignty, international law and internationalorganization were being accepted, in theoryand practice,by the non-Westernstates. He also gave to theirdemands for greaterpower and greater justicea reformistrather than a revolutionaryinterpretation. Fifthly, in his lecturesat the Universityof Waterloo, he talked about an emergingconsensus on certain commonnotions of distributivejustice-despite the lack of agreementon who should be the distributor,the principlesof distribution,and any theoryof the concept of distributivejustice in internationalrelations. This emergingconsensus may also have been one of the aspects of the contemporarycultural change which Bull saw as a positive factor:it would bring the differentcultures which today coexist closer together.Lastly, he stressedhis beliefthat it is possiblefor an internationalsociety to exist withouta common culture,so long as thereis a solid networkof common interests;he pointed out that one should not identify,and confuse,present-day internationalsociety with the quite exceptionalone of thenineteenth century. (One cannotfail to be struckonce againhere by theimportance Bull attachedto valuesand beliefs, as opposed to 'rules of the game' and what American theoristscall 'internationalregimes', in his accountof thecomponents of present-daysociety.)

30. Bull, Justice in international relations, pp. 10-11.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 190 HEDLEY BULL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The directionof contemporarychange This balancedanalysis raised the question of the forces and directionsof changein the currentinternational system. Bull answeredthis in two ways.Analytically, his answer is somewhatambivalent. On theone hand,he sees no evidenceof theworld moving 'beyondthe states system'. In Theanarchical society, he assertsthat the states system is neitherin decline,nor obsolete, nor dysfunctional. In hisopinion, none of the schemes whichhave been presentedfor its reform are likelyto be realized.On theother hand, he detectsthe beginning of a 'widerworld political system of which the states system is only part';31but, havinggiven us thistantalizing glimpse, he proceedsto removeit fromour sightby attemptingto prove thatwhat many scholarshave presentedas entirelynew and beyond the states system-for instance,non-state actors and transnationalsociety-either is not new at all, or is reallyonly thestates system (or, rather,one dominantstate, the United States)in disguise. The secondpart of Bull's answerto theproblem of contemporarychange lies in his prescriptions.At the end of The anarchicalsociety, he recognizesthat the book constitutesan 'implicitdefence of the statessystem', in particulara defenceof the principleof state sovereigntyas the best contemporaryway of protectinghuman beingsagainst forcible external interference. Yet Bull was clearlyaware of theneed for changebeyond the status quo, and in a numberof directions. Most importantof these was his plea fora broadeningof theconsensus on commoninterests among states in a way that would include the countriesof the Third World. The need to take into accountthe demandsof the'have nots' was theone positiveelement he had foundin thework of E. H. Carr. Bull's recommendationson justicein internationalrelations showed his desire to satisfythe legitimatedemands of the developingcountries withoutin anyway givingup essentialWestern values. This is whyhe insistedthat the recognitionof therights of states should be keptsubject to and limitedby therights of the internationalcommunity, and why he emphasizedthe importanceof what he called a profoundchange in theperception of justicein internationallaw: 'the rights and benefitsto whichjustice has to be done in theinternational community are not simplythose of statesand nations,but those of individualpersons throughout the world as a whole'.32Indeed, the most striking prescriptions in his mostrecent work concernthe need to developthe cosmopolitan elements in thepresent world culture, not only as they affectthe rightsof individuals,but with referenceto the new conceptionof a commongood forthe human species. In both thesedomains he was awareof the broad range of disagreements between states-especially on humanrights questions-and of the absence of any consensuson the means and institutionsfor stemming'the dangers of nuclear war, disequilibriumbetween population and resources,or environmentaldeterioration'. Nevertheless he triedto suggestways of movingin this direction,which might be called,if not 'beyond and afterthe states system',at leasta 'statessystem plus', a statessystem within a widerone thatborrowed elementsfrom the 'domestic model'. Societywould thusbe soughtnot only within the (anarchical)states system, but beyond. Ultimately,in thispart of his work we findone tensionthat could also be detectedin thework of E. H. Carr: a tensionbetween Bull's awarenessof thespecial importance of thegreat powers because of their evident stake in preservinginternational society (a stakewhich he thoughtgreater than that of otherpowers), and his awarenessof their

31. Bull, The anarchicalsociety, pp. 276ff. 32. Bull,Justice in internationalrelations, p. 12.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 191 inadequacyin a globalinternational system in which they cannot fulfil their traditional functionsalone anymore-for two reasons:because of thegreater capacity of smaller powersto resist,and because of thegreater potency of ideologiesof resistanceand of internationalequality. Like Carr,Bull resolvesthis tension by an argumentin support of a much broaderdefinition by the greatpowers of theirown interests-andof the commoninterest.

Hedley Bull and the nuclear conundrum One of the main perils threateningthe human species is the nuclearpredicament. Hedley Bull's work on arms controlis of considerableimportance to studentsof internationalaffairs. First, it was plantedfirmly in a politicalcontext, unlike, for instance, the contributionof Thomas Schelling. Like Schelling, Hedley Bull emphasizedthe unityof strategicdoctrine and of armscontrol; but unlikehim, Bull also believedin theunity of all militarypolicies (whether strategic or armscontrol) and foreignpolicy. Secondly,the politicalcontext Bull had in mind was neverjust the superpowerrivalry with which his Americancolleagues are obsessed. Bull triedto analysethe possible contribution arms control might make to internationalsociety as a whole, since contemporarysociety rests to such a large extenton a recognitionof common interests.It is always from this point of view that Bull assertedthat superpowerarms control alone was inadequate.33Thirdly, although he thoughtit far morerealistic than disarmament, Bull remainedextremely sceptical about thevalue of armscontrol as a panacea.For him,it could becomeone, perhaps, but only if states had armscontrol as theircentral objective (and mostof the timethey do not) or if states behaved entirelyrationally. But, once again,he greetedthe conceptof 'the rational actionof a kindof strategicman' withderision, on thegrounds that it was good only for'formal theorizing'. Strategic man, he wrote,is 'a manwho on furtheracquaintance revealshiniself as a universityprofessor of unusualintellectual subtlety'.34 What were his main contributionsto the studyof arms control?They may not appeardeeply original today, but theycertainly were in 1961. Along withAron's, his was themain non-American voice in theearly-and stillthe best-chorus of 'nuclear theorists'.In the firstplace, Bull verysoon became aware of the conditionsfor the stabilityof nucleardeterrence, and of therisks of destabilization.As earlyas 1961,in The controlof the arms race, he had definedthe conditions of stability as theabsence of anycapacity for a disarmingfirst strike and theabsence of any capability to defendone's population and one's industries.Destabilization could thereforeresult both from weapons of increasingaccuracy and payload-Bull was disturbedby the appearance of multiple independentlytargeted re-entryvehicles (MIRV) -and from the developmentof anti-ballisticmissiles or strategicdefences in general.Many yearsago, Bull reviewed the argumentswhich had been presented,particularly by the late Donald Brennan,in favourof strategicdefences.35 He analysed them with great fairness:he sympathizedwith the doubts Brennan and Dyson had expressedabout the 'rationalitymodels' thatunderlie deterrence theory. But ultimatelyhe rejectedtheir case: he thoughtthat defences would lead to a dangerousescalation of thearms race,

33. Cf. Hedley Bull, 'Arms control:a stocktakingand prospects',Adelphi Papers, No. 55, Mar. 1969, pp. 11-20. 34. Bull, The controlof thearms race, p. 48. 35. Hedley Bull, 'The scope for Soviet-Americanagreement', Adelphi Papers, No. 65, Feb. 1970, pp. 1-15.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 192 HEDLEY BULL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS largelybecause of thecountermeasures which each side would obviouslybe eagerto take in orderto restorethe supremacyof the offensive. Bull's second contributionto the studyof armscontrol was his awarenessof the fragilityof armscontrol as a basis forinternational order. At the end of his lifehe seemedto be moreoptimistic about thestability of nucleardeterrence, in spiteof the factthat the theoretical vulnerability of land-basedmissiles was growing-something whichwas drivingso manyAmericans crazy. He thoughtthat countermeasures could makethese missiles less vulnerable, and thatstability could survivethe vulnerability of one elementof thetriad of sea-based,land-based and air-basednuclear systems. Bull wrote that stable deterrencedid not depend on or requirethe doctrineof mutual assureddestruction. He thusacknowledged the possibility of whatMcGeorge Bundy would latercall existentialdeterrence: a conditionin whichthe nuclear powers deter each otherfrom the use ofnuclear weapons whatever their strategic doctrine may be.36 Nevertheless,Bull believedthat strategic nuclear deterrence could neverserve as a satisfactoryfoundation of internationalorder, for a whole seriesof reasons. First, deterrenceconcentrates on a setof means,whereas the important question for Hedley Bull concernedstates' ends. Secondly, it focusesattention on militaryissues when the importantissue in avoidingwar is the managementand controlof politicalcrises. Thirdly,deterrence deals withthe prevention of war butleaves out ofdiscussion what statesshould do ifdeterrence fails and war breaks out. Fourthly,deterrence is based on thatassumption of rationalitywhich Bull alwaysdistrusted. Fifthly, strategic nuclear deterrenceis an intenselybipolar phenomenon in a world in whichnuclear weapons are spreading.Sixth and lastly,a point which Bull made in passingwith his usual discretion:peace based on nucleardeterrence alone is 'morallydisreputable'.37 It is the same awarenessof fragilitywhich made Bull scepticalabout the scenarios-so often favouredby Americanscholars-of limitednuclear war used to compensatefor Westernconventional inferiority. Bull's own recommendationsin the nuclear realm were conspicuous for their realism.He could be scathinglycritical of pleas for unilateraldisarmament or for completeand generaldisarmament. He was sceptical-more,perhaps, than I would be-about theprospects of comprehensivearms control agreements; he showedmore sympathyfor unilateral and parallelrestraints, and he thoughtpartial agreements more probable.He was awareof the impossibility of distinguishing offensive from defensive weapons; and he did not thinkit was possibleto distinguishbetween weapons on the basis of thedifferent missions assigned to them,since each weapons systemis capable of performinga whole varietyof missions.He realizedthat many weapons systems, includinganti-ballistic missiles and multipleindependent warheads, could be both stabilizingand destabilizing.All these points contributedto his doubts about the chancesof comprehensivenegotiated arms control. Such negotiations, Bull noted,had actuallygenerated new increasesin armaments. Nevertheless,Bull did not giveup on thesubject of armscontrol. He had his own prescriptions.He did not thinkstates needed to put thethreshold for mutual assured destructionas highas theydid. In otherwords, it did not make much sense forthe superpowersto have (as they now do) somethinglike 10,000 strategicnuclear warheadseach. But he was awareof thefact that if the threshold was set too low, the risksincurred in case of a violation-or, put anotherway, theincentive to attemptto

36. Hedley Bull, 'Future conditionsof strategicdeterrence', Adelphi Papers, No. 160, Aut. 1980, pp. 13-23. 37. Bull, 'Futureconditions of strategicdeterrence', p. 16.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 193 disarmthe adversaryby a firststrike-would risecorrespondingly. He was hesitant about the best formulafor arms control. In 1969, before the firstlarge-scale superpoweragreements, he suggestedthe superpowers should try to limitthe numbers of deployedlaunch vehicles; in 1979,after the mixed record of theSALT process,he wrotethat the formula of parityin numbersof deployedlaunch vehicles followed by reductionswas unsatisfactory.He wantednuclear weapons to serveonly to deterfrom the use of othernuclear weapons-a positionwhich anticipated the standtaken by McGeorge Bundy, George Kennan, Robert McNamara and George Ball, among others,against any firstuse of nuclearweapons in case of a conventionalattack. (Bull himselfdoubted, however, that the conventional capabilities of NATO would allow it to adopt such a doctrine.)Finally, he advocatedmuch greater urgency in the task of preventingnuclear proliferation, and he blamedthe superpowers' 'high posture', their constantescalation of theirnuclear arms race, for encouraging third parties to become nuclearstates.

Hedley Bull and the present-daybalance of power Two interestingtensions are to be foundin Bull's workon thesubject of the balance of power in thepresent-day international system. The firstof theseis a tensionbetween two modes of internationalsociety.38 In the firstmode, societycan be, as he put it, 'contrived'or deliberatelyarranged. In thisrespect Bull pointedto therole of the great powers: theyform a club whichhas specialrights and dutiesand performsimportant functionseven in the conflictualbipolar world of today. Bull stuckto thisnotion, largely because of his remarkablynon-Manichaean view of the contemporary internationalsystem. He emphasizedthe set of 'rules of the game' developedby the superpowersin the 1960s and expandedduring the period of detenteof the 1970s, whichhe greetedas a periodof progress. But in thesecond mode, society can be more 'fortuitous'.In thisperspective, Bull's emphasiswas on a rathermore mechanical and contentiousbalancing of power than the agreements between the superpowers or their observanceof mutual respect for each other's spheres of local preponderance.For Bull, thebalancing of power was a necessityfor the survival of international society; and this convictionled himto repeatfrequently an interestingargument, which enraged many Americans.According to Bull,in theworld of today,only the Soviet Union is capable of balancingthe power of the United States.Bull used thisargument to explain,or perhapsexplain away, the Sovietmilitary build-up.39 There was anothertension in Bull's work on the balance of power: a tension betweentwo approachesto universalsociety. At one point Bull depicteduniversal societyas restingon a singleculture. In the 1968 Bellagioconference, he pointedout thatthe United States was providingthe only basis for the new globalsociety, because Americanculture had spreadthrough most of theworld. He wonderedwhether the removalof thiscommon basis would not be disastrous,since it could lead eitherto the risk of Soviet hegemonyor to the multiplicationof troublesomeand potentially nuclearpowers. But at a laterstage he thoughtthat the universalsociety which had been formedthrough the extensionof membershipto thenations emancipated from colonialism,and whichwas characterizedby the revoltagainst the West, could only surviveby accommodatingall the differentcultures which exist in it today-even if

38. Bull, The anarchicalsociety, ch. 5 (see esp. p. 104). 39. Cf. Hedley Bull, 'A view fromabroad: consistencyunder pressure', Foreign Affairs, supplement, Americaand theworld 1978, pp. 445-6.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 194 HEDLEY BULL AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS this kind of compromiseprovided a much weaker common basis than thatwhich European culturehad constitutedfor the international society of previouscenturies. It appearsto me thatBull madeone attemptto reconcilethese divergent notions: in his plea fora WestEuropean entity capable of providingits own defencesystem. It is one of the paradoxes of recentyears that non-Europeanshave oftenbeen more militantlyin favourof a Europeanentity than the Europeans themselves. Bull's rather belated but spectacularconversion to 'Europeanism' was a way of achievinga synthesisof his differentconcerns. First, he saw in theEuropean entity an answerto a problemwhich he saw as increasinglypressing: the need to balance the power of a UnitedStates which in recentyears had repudiateddetente and appearedto be seeking superiorityor evenhegemony. Secondly, a Europeanentity was neededto balancethe power of the SovietUnion, whichhad not repudiateddetente and whose policy Bull interpretedas probablydefensive in itsinspiration, but which would remaindefensive in actiononly as long as therewas a strongWestern guard. Clearly, Bull had become deeplydisillusioned with both superpowers. Already in 1980 he had denouncedthem as ill fittedto therole which great powers had traditionallyplayed-the UnitedStates because of itspeculiar past and its tendencyto proselytizeits own vision;the United Statesand theSoviet Union togetherbecause of their instinctive belief that the menace of superiorpower can be cancelledby virtuousintentions. Both superpowersseemed to himto be insufficientlydependent on theworld economy, and plaguedby whathe called the domesticself-absorption of verylarge societies.40 If neitherone nor both togethercould claimto be regardedas trusteesfor mankind, maybe Europe could. Bull believedthat Europe had a speciallink with the Third World, largely because of the combinationof a colonial past and a sense of guiltabout thatcolonialism. He thoughtthat Europe was uniquelyqualified to conductin theThird World the policy of accommodation which, according to him, the Reagan administrationhad abandonedand repudiated.Bull also believedthat the Europeans would notfollow Mr Reagan'sAmerica in a policyof 'constructive engagement'-for instance, appeasement of South Africa-which he deemed strategicallyas well as morally wrong and attributedto cold war obsessionsand oversimplificationin Washington.Finally, he thoughtthat the construction of a Europeanpolitical and militaryentity was vitalfor West European dignity. In otherwords, the West European undertakingseemed to Bull to representthe choiceof universalism over 'Americanism in culture,and ofa mixedpolicy combining balance(between the major powers) and deliberatecontrivance (in therelations with theThird World) in internationalsociety. Bull's objectivewas stillto strengthenthat society:Western Europe, he thought,was thearea wherethe greatest recognition of theneed forinternational society was to be found;and he wishedWestern Europe to become a greatpower so as to preventthe rift in thesuperpower club frombecoming irreparable.But, once again,the only thing missing has been thecapacity and thewill of the Europeansto play such an ambitiousrole.

In The controlof thearms race Bull had writtenthat 'the world is verymuch more complicatedthan the arguments' he had presented,and that'the destinies of nations are not determinedby simple choices of the soul'.41 But Hedley Bull's work has 40. Hedley Bull, 'The great irresponsibles:the United States,the Soviet Union and world order', InternationalJournal,Vol. 35, No. 3, Sum. 1980,pp. 437-47. 41. Bull, The controlof thearms race, p. 212.

This content downloaded from 137.204.120.49 on Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:01 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StanleyHoffmann 195 illuminatedthese complicationsin a way which is unique and originalprecisely becauseof the rich tension and dialoguebetween the Grotian elements of his work and the morepluralistic, conflictual views; the choicesof thisparticular soul were never simple,but always generousand wise. This is why his disappearanceat a tragically earlyage is sucha seriousloss forall studentsof international relations. In sucha small numberof yearshe has givenus at leastthree reasons for admiring his achievements and continuinghis effort.He providedus withthe firstcomprehensive defence and illustrationof armscontrol in an age dominatedby thenuclear threat. He gave us the most panoramicand incisiveanalysis of the rules,institutions and prospectsof the 'anarchicalsociety' constituted by themodern states system. And he showed thatone can recognize'the limits of rigour and precision'and be 'on guardagainst their misuse' withoutever 'abandoning rigour and precisionin favor'of sloppinessor stridency.42 His was a highlycivilized voice, in which scepticismand hope were admirably balanced.There are fewsuch voices left.

42. Bull, 'Strategicstudies and its critics',p. 602.

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