Study of International Relations

The roots of the discipline of International Relations lie in the fields of Diplomatic History and International Law. In the wake of the shock and devastation of World War I, the discipline broadened and was enriched by interdisciplinary collaboration.

In 1926, at the University of Chicago, several departments engaged in joint research under the “Causes of War” project led by Professor Quincy Wright. The departments involved were: political science, economics, history, sociology, anthropology, geography, psychology, and philosophy. An extensive body of published and unpublished books and papers emerged from the collaboration. Professor Wright’s last teaching position was at the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the University of Virginia, envisioned a Chair in Diplomacy for his university and this eventually came to fruition many years later.

After World War II, the US Department of State facilitated the establishment of the Woodrow Wilson Department of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia and also facilitated the establishment of a sister department at Princeton University. Scholars associated with Professor Wright and the University of Chicago went on to found the Institute for Peace and War Studies at Columbia University with the encouragement of General Dwight Eisenhower, then president of Columbia University.

After World War II, in the United States, the approach to International Relations based on the traditional use of Diplomatic History and International Law enriched and updated by social sciences faded. During the Cold War, an alien Nietzschean “Realism” along with certain quantitative and behavioral methodology displaced the earlier approach and received financial support from the US military-industrial complex including influential foundations. Thus, the militarization of US foreign policy resulted and colored the thinking of academic and policy elites. to this day. The US intervened unnecessarily abroad and lost several wars: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the international situation changed. Today, the US is a power in relative decline while China (and Asia) is rising and Russia is recovering from its Soviet era. Such historic changes in the international system, which includes power transition, must be managed through diplomacy and appropriate adjustments must be made. Peaceful change, aiming at adaptive stability, rather than conflict must be the way forward. The international community seeks Peace and Development not endless war and this accords with fundamental United States national interests.

China and Russia in dealing with the changing international situation emphasize the role of the United Nations and International Law. Dialogue of civilizations is needed to foster mutual understanding and cooperation for a way forward at this time of historic change in the international system. Russia promotes classical Diplomacy as way forward. China proposes a “Community With a Shared Future.”

United States elites seek to perpetuate a status quo that maintains US hegemony. But this is not today a sustainable foreign policy particularly in light of its debacle in Afghanistan. Washington must now rethink its role in the world and its foreign policy must be guided by a wise, prudent, and restrained national strategy. It is not impossible for Washington to return to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and to the constructive spirit of its diplomacy in the 19th century prior to the War with Spain in 1898. Going forward in today’s world with a Cold War mentality and militarized foreign policy is a dead end and will impair US long term national security.

Clearly, the time has arrived for the US to reflect and to adjust its foreign policy in the national interest of its People and world peace.

• Dr. Clifford A Kiracofe, President, Washington Institute for Peace and Development

George Washington

“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it?”— President George Washington, Farewell Address 1796

Alexander Hamilton

….”The causes of hostilities among nations are innumerable. There are some which have a general and almost const.rant operation upon the collective bodies of society: Of this description are the love o power and the desire of preeminence and dominion — the jealousy of power, or the desire of equality and safety.

….The celebrated Pericles…was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war, distinguished in the Grecian annals by the name of Peloponnesian war; which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian commonwealth.”

Thomas Jefferson

“For my part I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may ever be maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce and friendship may be sought and cultivated by all.” Thomas Jefferson Letter to Thomas Lieper 12 June 1815

Quincy Wright

The concepts of adaptive stability, world community, peaceful change, international system::

“…the problem of preventing war is one of increasing importance in our civilization and that problem is essentially one of maintaining adaptive stability within the world community, only possible if large sections of the public persistently view that community as a whole….Continuous thought and study, closely integrated with practical effort by our own and successive generations, is the price that must be paid for a less violent world. But neither thought nor action can be effective without a clear and widespread vision of the world as a whole, of the interactions of the past and its present, of the interrelations of the regions, and of the interdependence of its peoples.”

“…the victors of World War I, overinterested in the perpetuation of a particular status quo, had given inadequate attention to the development of procedures for peaceful change. Grievances providing fuel for these revolts [from League of Nations by German, Italy, Japan] against the international system had not been dealt with in time. It became clear that a working international polity must not only suppress aggression but must also prevent the development of political inferiority complexes.”

Quincy Wright, 11 November 1941, in A Study of War (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1942), pp. viii-ix, 345).

Thucydides

Of the Peloponnesian War:

“By this war, all Hellas was set in motion; for on all sides dissensions prevailed between the popular party and the nobles. The former desired to invite the Athenians; the latter the Lacedemonians. The cities were shaken by sedition; and where this broke out at a less early period, greater excesses were attempted than any which had elsewhere taken place. Even the significations of words changed. Mad rashness was called disinterested courage; prudent delay, timidity. Whoever was violent was held worthy of confidence; whoever opposed violence, was suspected. The crafty was called intelligent; the crafty, still more intelligent. In short, praise was given to him who anticipated another in injustice; and to him who encouraged to crime one who himself had never thought of it”. iii.

A.H.L. Heeren

The concept of a states-system and society of states:

“Whoever undertakes to write the history of any states-system…ought, above all things, to possess a right conception of its general character. In the system of European states, it is obvious this character must be sought for in its internal freedom, or, in other words, the mutual independence of its members, however disproportionate they may otherwise be in regard to physical power. It is this feature which distinguishes it from one of an opposite class, where an acknowledged preponderance of one of the members exists….

…all the members of such a system of states have, each one of them, their peculiar character, and their own mode of existence and action, which again are subject to change…

A numerous society of states, subsisting together under long and varied forms of relationships, improves and degenerates just as any great mass of individuals would do under similar circumstances….But perhaps the modest inquirer …will also be able to discover the prospect of a greater and more glorious future; when, instead of the confined European States-System of the last centuries, he beholds…the elements of a more free and comprehensive system, which shall include the states of the whole earth, and is even now rising in its strength.” Goettingen, Feb. 5, 1809

Friedrich Meinecke

Meinecke’s critique of power politics, machtpolitik. Concepts of the well-being of the State, moral law, idea of Justice.

“Besides the ultimate value represented by the well-being of the State, there are still other outstanding values which lay an equal claim as to be considered unconditional. Of these we are concerned here with the moral law and with the idea of justice. For it is the case that this very well-being of the State is secured not solely through power, but also through ethics and justice; and in the last resort the disruption of these can endanger the maintenance of power itself.” Die Idee der Staatsraeson, 1924.

Xi Jinping

Working Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Humankind 

Speech at the United Nations Office at Geneva 

January 18, 2017 

….”To pass on the torch of peace from generation to generation, sustain development, and allow civilization to flourish – this is what people of all countries long for; it is also the responsibility statesmen of our generation ought to shoulder. China's proposition is to build a community of shared future for humankind and achieve shared and mutually-beneficial development. 

Vision guides action and direction determines the future. As modern history shows, the establishment of a fair and equitable international order is the goal that humankind has always striven for. From the principles of equality and sovereignty established in the Peace of Westphalia over 360 years ago to the international humanitarianism affirmed in the Geneva Convention 150-plus years ago; from the four purposes and seven principles enshrined in the UN Charter more than 70 years ago to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence championed by the Bandung Conference over 60 years ago, many principles have emerged in the evolution of international relations and become widely accepted. These principles should guide us in building a community of shared future for humankind. 

Sovereign equality has been the most important norm governing state-to-state relations over the past centuries, and it is the cardinal principle observed by the United Nations and all other international organizations. The essence of sovereign equality is that the sovereignty and dignity of all countries, whether big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, must be respected. The internal affairs of countries must not be interfered with, and each country has the right to independently choose its own social system and development path…..”