the great powers, based on the conservative foundations of their
happy and grand alliance.”^32
The worldview of the right rested less on abstract ideals than on
pragmatic political considerations. It reflected, as well, a more skep-
tical view of human reason and democracy.^33 In this perspective, best
articulated by Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, peace
was merely the temporary absence of war. It was unlikely to last
because political interests would always differ, and war was “a con-
tinuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means.”^34
War was “part of man’s social existence.” It was a “clash between
major interests, which is resolved by bloodshed – that is the only
way in which it differs from other conflicts.”^35 For Clausewitz, only
military force could fashion the world order. At most, “attached to
force” were “certain self-imposed, imperceptible limitations hardly
worth mentioning, known as international law and custom, but they
scarcely weaken it.”^36 The German empire led by Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck became the incarnation of this conservative, balance-of-
power diplomacy, based on military strength, war readiness, and
alliances. This realist approach was successful in so far as there were
no major wars in Europe between 1871 and 1914.^37
International affairs, argued conservative intellectuals, could not be
governed by reason and morality because the world was an anarchical
society where might made right. As Bismarck observed, the best way
to preserve peace was to prepare for war. Politicians on the right,
then, generally favored a strong military, and preferred to shield it as
much as possible from the control of parliaments, always liable to
reduce commitments and expenditures. In line with the right’s belief
in discipline and hierarchy, the military was also valued as a molder
of fit and patriotic men, and as an anchor for social order.
The conservative politics of the nineteenth century could not pre-
vent the rise of a vision of world order that was critical of the very idea
of peace through force. Indeed, many strands of thought converged to
(^32) Metternich, quoted in Jonathan Haslam,No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist
Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli, New Haven, Yale
33 University Press, 2002, p. 115.
34 Knutsen,A History of International Relations Theory, pp. 143–45.
37 Ibid., p. 87.^35 von Clausewitz,On War,p.149.^36 Ibid., p. 75.
Jean-Baptiste Duroselle,L’Europe de 1815 a`nos jours: vie politique et relations
internationales, Paris, PUF, 1964, p. 149.
92 Left and Right in Global Politics