Kenneth Waltz

"Like any truly great thinker, Ken Waltz defied stereotypes. The preeminent hard-headed theorist of power politics, he savaged the hopes of those who believe that moral energy, liberal principles, or democratic crusades can end war. But he belied the common assumption that realists are callous hawks who relish the use of force. He opposed the Vietnam War, the Reagan military buildup, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq as overreactions to threats that were exaggerated and could be handled by calm containment and deterrence."

"If we gather more and more data and establish more and more associations, however, we will not finally find that we know something. We will simply end up having more and more data and larger sets of correlations."

"I am not saying that such a theory cannot be constructed, but only that I cannot see how to do it in any way that might be useful. The decisive point, anyway, is that a macrotheory of international politics would lack the practical implications of macroeconomic theory. National governments can manipulate system-wide economic variables. No agencies with comparable capabilities exist internationally. Who would act on the possibilities of adjustment that a macrotheory of international politics might reveal?"

"Waltz is to the study of international relations what Darwin is to the study of biology. I make this claim in terms of the sheer intellectual significance of his theoretical contribution. One cannot make sense of the biological world apart from Darwin’s theory of evolution: equally, Waltz’s structural framework for understanding how states interact under anarchy, with an uneven distribution of power and a desire to survive, offers a powerful theory for making sense of the international system. Neither theory explains everything in their domain — one always needs to know more about particularities — but both provide compelling big-picture explanations of their domains."

"Asking who won a given war, someone has said, is like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake. That in war there is no victory but only varying degrees of defeat is a proposition that has gained increasing acceptance in the twentieth century."

"To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous."

"The most important causes of political arrangements and acts are found in the nature and behavior of man."

"To solve these problems one needs as much an understanding of politics as an understanding of man - and the one cannot be derived from the other."

"States in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law."

"External pressure seems to produce internal unity."

"Then what explains war among states? Rousseaus answer is really that war occurs because there is nothing to prevent it."

"War most often promotes the internal unity of each state involved. The state plagued by internal strife may then, instead of waiting for the accidental attack, seek the war that will bring internal peace."