The Analysis of International Relations [antikvár]

An introduction to the study of international relationsin our time is an introduction to the art and science of the survival of mankind.If civilization is killed within the next thirty years, it will not be killedby famine or plague, but by foreign policy and international relations.We can cope with hunger and pestilence, but we cannot yet dealwith the power of our own weapons and with our behavior as nation-states.Possessing unprecedented instruments for national actionin the forms of ideologies and weapons, the nation-states have becomeever more dangerous vehicles of international conflict, carrying the potentialfor its escalation to mutual destruction and ultimate annihilation.The nation-state holds the power to control most events within its borders, butfew eventsor even its own actionsbeyond them.International relations is that area of human action where inescapableinterdependence meets with inadequate control. We can neither escape fromworld affairs nor wholly shape them to our will. We can only try to adjust theworld while adjusting to it. Within this limited scope, we must retain and,where possible, enhance our most deeply held values.As the practice of international relations has become more difficultand decisive, its study has moved to keep pace. The dramaticadvances in the field over the last three decades include changes in basicconcepts and theories, changes stimulated by a meeting of the newerbehavioral sciences of psychology, sociology, and anthropology with the longerestablished disciplines of political science, history, and economics. These changesin theory have been accompanied by the development of new methods of research,