pre-empt anticipated attacks by gaining power over those who may be plotting against him. In order to do this the power to kill oneÆs opponents must be acquired, as this is the ultimate deterrent to those who would challenge oneÆs security by violent means. However, with all men pursuing the same goal (security) by the same methods (acquiring the power to kill, and thereby the power to deter attacks), the survival game remains highly volatile, with all men arming themselves to the teeth in the name of personal security. It is thus the rational desire to create personal stability and safety that paradoxically fuels a high stakes climate of conflict and ultimately, mass destruction (Hampshire-Monk, 2001, pp. 31).
Human beings have behaved in step with the Hobbesian model for millennia, with appropriately bloody results. Where HobbesÆ state of nature obtains for the individual, it is not difficult to perceive how individual states have also followed this pattern of deterrence vis-a-vis projections of strength (the concert system employed throughout Imperial Europe and the arms race during the Cold War immediately come to mind). However, some have claimed that in spite of this, human beings are not naturally disposed to violence. In 1990, American Psychologist reprinted the
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