Janus and Minerva About the Book and Author In these essays, one of the most eminent political scientists of our time examines international relations from a variety of perspectives connected by timeless and common themes: the conflict between the ever~present risk of violence and the quest for international order, the tensions between the imperatives of power and those of morality, the ties that bind domestic and foreign policy, the ambiguities of the nuclear revolution, the break between prenuclear and post-1945 politics, and the dangers created by the competition between the nuclear superpowers. Assessing the development of the discipline of international relations, the author presents both a summary of the field's significant findings and a critical discussion of its most representative traditions of realism and liberalism. Written between 1960 and 1985, many of these essays have not been previously published in English. They reflect the author's own intellectual evolution and represent a complete picture of his approach to the study of world politics. Stanley Hoffmann is Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France at Harvard University and chairman of the Center for European Studies. His numerous publications include Duties Beyond Borders and Primacy or World Order: American Foreign Policy Since the Cold War. Janus and Minerva Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics Stanley Hoffmann To the memory of Raymond Aron (1905-1983) and Hedley Bull (1933-1985) and to the future of Michael Smith First published 1987 by Westview Press, Inc. Published 2018 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1987 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging·in·Publication Data Hoffmann, Stanley. Janus and Minerva: essays in the theory and practice of international politics. Includes bibliographical references. 1. World politics-1945- 2. International relations. I. Title. D1058.H54 1987 327.1'01 86-13263 ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00674-7 (hbk) Contents Preface ......................................................... ix Acknowledgments ............................................... xiii Part One Theories and Theorists 1 An American Social Science: International Relations .............3 2 ~~u on ~ar and Peace .................................25 3 Raymond Aron and the Theory of International Relations .......52 4 Hans Morgenthau: The Limits and Influence of "Realism'' .......70 Part Two Order and Violence 5 Is There an International Order?. ............................85 6 The Future of the International Political System: A Sketch ..... U2 7 International Systems and International Law .................. 149 8 The Problem of Intervention................................ 178 9 Nuclear Worries: France and the United States ............... 194 Part Three Actors and Interactions 10 On the Origins of the Cold War ...........................207 11 Grasping the Bear: Patterns and Puzzles of Soviet International Be~r ......................................224 U Cries and Whimpers: Thoughts on West European- American Relations in the 1980s ............................243 13 Domestic Politics and Interdependence .......................268 Part Four Sermons and Suggestions 14 International Organization and the International System ........293 15 Taming the Eagle: U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security .... 316 16 Beyond Terror? ........................................... .349 17 Reaching for the Most Difficult: Human Rights as a Foreign Policy Goal ....................................370 vii viii Contents 18 Liberalism and International Affairs ......................... .394 19 On the Political Psychology of Peace and War: A Critique and an Agenda ................................. 418 Part Five Conclusion 20 The Sound and the Fury: The Social Scientist Versus War in History ................................................439 Preface The essays that make up this book were written during the past twenty· five years. Three were part of The State of War (Praeger Publishers, 1965), now out of print. Others have been published between 1970 and 1985. Five were not previously published in English, including two that I have translated from the French. Almost all have been revised for this volume. In the foreword to The State of War, I wrote that my basic concern, throughout these essays, is to elaborate a certain kind of theoretical approach to international relations. For the reasons summed up in the first chapter, I want this approach to be closely tied first to history and second to the teachings and insights of political philosophy. To move from method to substance: the central conception in these essays is one that Hobbes and Rousseau developed and that the whole record of history suggests. International politics is "a state of war" -a competition of units in the kind of state of nature that knows no restraints other than those which the changing necessities of the game and the shallow conveniences of the players impose. Obviously, there are oases of real peace and periods in which the competition is less fierce, but, as I have tried to suggest, the "state of war" is the aspect of international relations that dominates. The central concept of the "state of war" stresses the fundamental difference between domestic politics and foreign policy. I am aware of the criticisms lwrled by scholars against this distinction, which is a distinction of "ideal· types"; but their objections strike me as based on either (a) marginal cases, in which the distinction breaks down-cases whose existence I would not at all deny but which I continue to see as exceptions to the rule; (b) the fact that in a revolutionary era of world politics, the boundary between the two realms is generally violated-which often contributes to making domestic politics like the ideal-type of international relations, but not at all to turning international relations into the ideal-type of domestic politics; or (c) wishful thinking. Twenty years later, I find that I have been persistent, but not obstinate. The emphasis in these essays is still on the stark realities of a contest whose rules-empirical, legal, or moral-are fragile because they are subjected to the whims of the very states they are supposed to restrain, and whose survival nuclear weapons puts in question. But I have moved in two directions that were not so visible in the book of twenty years ago. Indeed, one was missing altogether. Since the late 1960s, I have focused on those arenas of world politics in which one finds the confrontation and, often, ix X Preface cooperation of domestic policies, rather than on the clash of national security interests or of designs for territorial expansion and diplomatic advantages- the arenas of what some of my colleagues have called "complex interde- pendence" in the world political economy. In this domain, states are not the only actors; moreover, the relevant "model" for understanding the logic of behavior is neither that of the ideal-type of domestic politics nor that of the state of war. During the past fifteen years, many scholars of international affairs have specialized in the research and theory of this enormous field. I owe much of my interest in it to the incisive intelligence of Miriam Camps and to my friendship with Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane. The essays of the early 1960s were relentlessly analytic and critical-but not exclusively so. One, which appeared in The State of War but is not reproduced here, described contemporary international politics as a roulette game played with a nuclear ball and asked that nations (1) choose cooperation over unilateral action, (2) inject a long-term concern for preserving the game into their policies, and (3) launch a "cumulative movement" toward world order. Many of the more recent essays make these notions more explicit and thus express an increasingly normative bent, which is reflected, here, in the title and chapters of Part Four. This evolution also corresponds to a general shift in scholarship: the revival of prescriptive approaches, ranging from what might be called normative futurology (the production of what, in the late 1950s, I had called relevant utopias) to moral phtlosophy about world affairs. The shocks inflicted even on "realist" scholars by the Vietnam War and, above all, by the endless dUemmas of our nuclear predicament have been the two principal goads prompting this shift. But the inevitable salience of human rights issues in a world of often horrible political systems, and of distributive justice in a world of inequity, has also pushed students of international affairs in the direction of moral phtlosophy. These growing concerns have led me to make some changes in several of the older essays-either actual revisions or, in the case of Chapter 7, an addendum. They have also incited me to stress two points that explain the title. The first point, made obvious by the reference to Janus,