38 Morgenthau’s argument thus diverges from Neibuhr’s claim that human frailties
precluded a world state. Reinhold Neibuhr, ‘The illusion of world government,’ Foreign
Affairs, 27 (2), April 1949.
39 Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War,pp. 171–85.
40 Using Hobbesian categories, Waltz observes that ‘states in the world are like individuals
in the state of nature’, but does not conclude from this fact that states must combine
because ‘individuals, to survive, must combine; states, by their very constitution, are not
subject to a similar necessity’. He thus builds into his definition of a state the security
viability which is, in fact, historically variable. Waltz, Man, the State, and War, pp. 163
and 162.
41 This narrowing of material context is in part the product of the narrow scope of his main
question (What are the causes of war?) which largely assumes the existence of states in
systemic anarchy.
42 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 129–160.
43 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 173.
44 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 175.
45 In John J. Mearsheimer’s version of offensive realism, the topographic fragmentation (in
the form of the ‘stopping power of water’) makes a surprise appearance and plays a major
role in shaping world political outcomes. Tragedy of Great Power Politics(New York:
Norton, 2001).
46 Although Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little usefully move to expand
Waltz’s truncated structural theory by (re)introducing violence interaction capacity, they
confine their deployment of this variable to situations moving from absent to low to
medium grades of such interaction (adding valuable insight into the formation of
international systems), and they fail to explore the more basic and recurring situation in
which such violence interdependence among actors rises to intense levels that logically
necessitate an exit from anarchy. TheLogic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism(New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993); and at length in Barry Buzan and Richard Little,
International Systems in World History(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Stephen
van Evera also reintroduces a variant of violence interdependence in his offense-defense
theory, but treats this as a fine-grained modification of the systemic argument of Waltz’s
neorealism. The Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict(Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1999).
47 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 180–82.
48 Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better(London:
International Institute for Security Studies, 1981); and Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Nuclear myths
and political realities’, American Political Science Review84 (3), September 1990.
49 For major substantive criticisms of Waltz’s nuclear argument, see Sagan chapters in Scott
D. Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate(New York:
Norton, 1995). For more extended analysis of the disjuncture between Waltz’s neorealist
and nuclear arguments, see Daniel Deudney, ‘Dividing realism,’ Security Studies2 (3 &
4), 1993, pp. 7–37.
50 ‘Within very wide ranges, a nuclear balance is insensitive to variation in numbers and
size of warheads.’ Waltz, ‘Nuclear myths and political realities’, p. 740.
34 Anarchy and violence interdependence