its own power and self-interest. The international arena under these assumptions is truly a dangerous world.
The human instinct approach to the causes of war and deterrence theory has been summarized by Kenneth Waltz as the locus of the important causes of war is to be found in the nature and behavior of man. Whatever may be the nature of the human animal determines how we behave on the international arena. If self-preservation is the primary instinct, nations will act in such a way necessary for survival. The greatest problem with this approach is to accurately identify human nature. Then it must be demonstrated that such a human instinctual trait is a sufficient explanation for, say, the causes of each and every war.
In order to manage this dangerous and conflict-oriented global arena, it is important to comprehend the decisionmaking processes that guide the content of decisions made by a nation's leadership. A variety of psychological and institutional factors are invoked by deterrence theorists as defining th
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