International Relations

In a nuclear age the potential price of mistakes is greater still; through most of the Cold War era, policymakers, diplomats, and their advisors lived with the spectre that a single afternoon's blunder might cost hundreds of millions of lives, or even conceivably extirpate the human race. The end of the Cold War has for the moment nearly eliminated the risk of a general nuclear exchange, but we cannot take for granted that there will never again be a confrontation of nuclear superpowers. Moreover, lesser confrontations around the world continue to cost lives, and it can be argued that the dissolution of the Cold War order, and a resultant rise of global uncertainty, has made such confrontations more likely, and generally made the practice of managi

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ry balance of power and did not become a Great Power till the end of the nineteenth-century balance of power. In short, the two balance-of-powers eras were dramatically different in their dynamics while they endured, and in their consequences when they broke down. Yet their similarities (and those of other balance-of-power systems) are great enough that we may plausibly seek to draw common lessons from them. Indeed, the student of international relations studies the art of peace in much the same way that the military strategist studies the art of war. The strategist is under no illusion that there were not profound differences between modern armies based on tanks, motorized infantry, and air support, and the Roman and Carthagenian armies that fought at Cannae in 246 BC. Yet from Cannae to the Gulf War, the strategist has identified common feature of battles, and does not hesitate to point out that in each of those engagements, one side won by outflanking and surrounding the main force of the other. With such examples at hand, the strategist seeks to distinguish common elements from unique conditions, and to analyse how the common elements may be applied in future battles. Likewise, the student of international relatio
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Approximate Word count = 2205
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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