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Caladbolg, thanks, these look interesting.
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On April 03 2012 15:20 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 15:18 sam!zdat wrote:On April 03 2012 15:10 itsjustatank wrote:On April 03 2012 15:05 sam!zdat wrote:On April 03 2012 15:04 itsjustatank wrote:On April 03 2012 15:03 sam!zdat wrote:
Would you agree that the definition of "self-interest" might be up for some debate? No, it isn't. Unless you believe that human beings are inherently peaceful, purely without greed, and completely altruistic. I will refer to the course of human history as evidence against that. Sorry, can you elaborate on why those are the only two choices? I.e., why is it nation states xor anarchy? I'm not saying it is order versus anarchy. I am saying that even in our definition of 'order' states and individuals operate on an anarchical basis with interest maximization at the forefront because that is their nature. These things did not exist before us; we created them. How can we then speak of their nature? Their "nature" is the dominant strategic attractor within a rule set that WE create. We can alter the dominant strategies by changing the rules of the game. This is what nation states do when they sign international treaties. A treaty is therefore an agreement on what the rules of the game should be. The states agree on what rule set would produce the strategic attractor that would be optimal (I understand, negotiated) for both parties. Why should we dismiss out of hand the idea that there might be a rule set which produced so optimal a strategic attractor that everybody would agree to it (this would of course be a very difficult engineering problem - I'm asking only if a solution might exist, not whether we could calculate it)? There is no overarching supranational governance structure which governs relations between states, especially great powers. Treaties only have force if, when broken, countries are willing to go to war in order to enforce them. International organizations only have legitimacy if important states say they do.
While the current order may be anarchy, it is only because current norms dictate it as such. In a sense, samzdat's post echoes the constructivist interpretation that better encompasses the broader scheme of events when it refers to these rule-sets being created by us, as realism itself is insufficient in explaining scenarios like the end of the Cold War or the initial desires to reach agreements like the NPT in the first place.
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Hong Kong9183 Posts
On April 04 2012 15:07 LlamaNamedOsama wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 15:20 itsjustatank wrote:On April 03 2012 15:18 sam!zdat wrote:On April 03 2012 15:10 itsjustatank wrote:On April 03 2012 15:05 sam!zdat wrote:On April 03 2012 15:04 itsjustatank wrote:On April 03 2012 15:03 sam!zdat wrote:
Would you agree that the definition of "self-interest" might be up for some debate? No, it isn't. Unless you believe that human beings are inherently peaceful, purely without greed, and completely altruistic. I will refer to the course of human history as evidence against that. Sorry, can you elaborate on why those are the only two choices? I.e., why is it nation states xor anarchy? I'm not saying it is order versus anarchy. I am saying that even in our definition of 'order' states and individuals operate on an anarchical basis with interest maximization at the forefront because that is their nature. These things did not exist before us; we created them. How can we then speak of their nature? Their "nature" is the dominant strategic attractor within a rule set that WE create. We can alter the dominant strategies by changing the rules of the game. This is what nation states do when they sign international treaties. A treaty is therefore an agreement on what the rules of the game should be. The states agree on what rule set would produce the strategic attractor that would be optimal (I understand, negotiated) for both parties. Why should we dismiss out of hand the idea that there might be a rule set which produced so optimal a strategic attractor that everybody would agree to it (this would of course be a very difficult engineering problem - I'm asking only if a solution might exist, not whether we could calculate it)? There is no overarching supranational governance structure which governs relations between states, especially great powers. Treaties only have force if, when broken, countries are willing to go to war in order to enforce them. International organizations only have legitimacy if important states say they do. While the current order may be anarchy, it is only because current norms dictate it as such. In a sense, samzdat's post echoes the constructivist interpretation that better encompasses the broader scheme of events when it refers to these rule-sets being created by us, as realism itself is insufficient in explaining scenarios like the end of the Cold War or the initial desires to reach agreements like the NPT in the first place.
Yet for constructivism to work, an "overarching supranational governance structure which governs relations between states" still has to be formed. That governance structure will have to coerce sovereignty and power from the status quo balance of power. Good luck with that. Current international organizations do not meet this definition, and the world order continues to be anarchical and it will continue to be for a long time coming.
Finally, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agreements are not somehow mutually exclusive to a realist approach (after all nuclear disarmament and non-prolif treaties began under their watch in the Cold War). Great powers have just decided that the risks posed by other, potentially rogue, states (or even hostile non-state actors) attaining nuclear weapons are unacceptable to them.
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EPT
