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Man State And War Analysis

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A review of Man, State and War by Kenneth N. Waltz

Man, State and War is the seminal book by Kenneth N. Waltz that asks a very basic but important question: What causes wars? He also implicitly asks the question of how we can achieve the “Utopian” dream of peace. Waltz’s analysis pins the blame on a complex interaction of three entities, that he calls the “levels” of organization. Two of them are the eponymous Man and State, and the third is the interaction of the states themselves. Waltz talks about the three entities and how they are viewed as the three “images of international relations” and he views them both as a single entity and how that entity interacts with and influences the others. (Waltz 14) Waltz acknowledges that the root cause of war cannot be any one of the three levels or images, but the blame lies with the interrelationship of the two or more of them (14-15). In addition, Waltz asks a few more pertinent questions: What, if any, is the specific cause of war? Does there exist a solution to create a world without war, which may not be a world with peace, or is war inevitable, owing to it being an integral part of human nature? (14-15). Waltz’s assertion is that the current climate of the world, with international anarchy due to lack of a centralized authority coupled with nation-states only interested in their self-interests prevent realization of the ultimate utopian dream. Ultimately, His conclusion is that …show more content…

While his analysis starts off with a reference to Mortimer Adler’s “How to Think About War and Peace”, it is quickly forgotten as Rousseau and other political philosophers, theologians, politicians political scientists take center-stage. In his introduction, while contemplating the nature of man and the state, he cites Rousseau’s essay “The State of War” and later, he quickly moves on to Alexander Hamilton and Hobbes and their views on the internal structures of the state

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