diametrically, different. Unlike individuals (or small groups) in the state-of-nature,
sovereigns in the state-of-war are not subject to sudden death at each other’s hands:
they are in a state of anarchy together, but are not so vulnerable. With their survival
more assured than the individual (or small group) in the state-of-nature, the
sovereigns in the state-of-war are not compelled by basic security imperatives to
submit themselves to an even greater sovereign. Government is necessary but
government over sovereign states is not.
There are thus two anarchies and the relationship between these two anarchies
and acute insecurity – and thus the imperative need for government – is vastly
different. Government is needed in one, but not the other. It is a fundamental
security imperative to leave the first anarchy of the state-of-nature and find
protection in government. In contrast, replacing the second anarchy of the interstate
state-of-war anarchy with government might yield many security benefits, but is
not a fundamental security imperative. From these arguments arises the starkly Janus-
faced posture of realist theorists toward anarchy: internal government is vital to
security, but ‘international’ government is utopian, unprecedented, and not vital for
security.
The presence of these two radically different anarchies thus poses a fundamental
question: Why is one anarchy so insecure while another anarchy, while at times
perilous, is not generally so acutely insecure as to require government? The simple
answer to this question is the material-contextual variable of violence interdependence,
the capacity of actors to do violent harm to one another. This variable is arguably
the most important in the whole state-of-nature conceptual edifice of Hobbes and
subsequent structural materialist security theory. When Waltz omits this variable,
the anarchy-interdependence problématique becomes the anarchy problématique.
A situation of violence interdependence occurs when two actors can inflict
violence upon one another, and the levels of violence they can wreak upon each
other vary in ways that matter profoundly. The level of violence interdependence
is pivotal because it defines whether anarchy is compatible with security. The
presence of violence interdependence inherently poses the issue of restraining
violence for security as a primordial and fundamental problem. Once some violence
interdependence is present, the way in which this reality is dealt with becomes
inescapably a political issue. The reason violence interdependence is so pivotal
for thinking clearly about the basic issues of security from violence and political
order is that it sets the fundamental parameters of the spatial scope of the actors
whose activities matter for the security of other actors. The levels of violence
interdependence shape the number of actors whose coordination is necessary for
achieving security and thus the extent of the collective action problem that must be
overcome to achieve security. It also thus defines which identity or other differences
must be mediated (or reduced) in order to coordinate to achieve security. Of course,
violence interdependence does not determine everything, but does powerfully shape
the outcomes of concern in state-of-nature arguments as guides to security.
22 Anarchy and violence interdependence