Morgenthau 1952

Another "Great Debate": The National Interest of the United States
Author(s): Hans J. Morgenthau

Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Dec., 1952), pp. 961-988
Published by: American Political Science Association
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The American
Political Science Review
VOL. XLVI DECEMBER, 1952 NO. 4
ANOTHER "GREAT DEBATE": THE NATIONAL INTEREST

OF THE UNITED STATES
HANS J. MORGENTHAU
University
of Chicago
The controversywhich has arisen on the occasion of Ambassador
Kennan's and my recent publicationsdiffersfromthe great historical
debates on Americanforeignpolicyin two significant respects.It raises
an issue more fundamentalto the understandingof Americanforeign
policy and of all politics than those with which the previous'"great
debates" were concerned,and it deals with the issue largelyin terms
whichare not conduciveto understanding.
The great debates of the past, such as the one over interventionvs.
neutralityin 1793, expansion vs. the status quo beforethe Mexican
and after the Spanish-AmericanWar, internationalcooperation vs.
isolationin the 'twenties,interventionvs. abstentionin the late 'thirties
-all evolved around clear-cutissues offoreignpolicy.In 1793 you were
in favor of goingto war on the side of France or of remainingneutral.
In the 1840's you approved of the annexationof Texas or you did not.
At the turnof the centuryyou supported overseas expansion or you
were against it. In the 'twentiesyou advocated joining the League of
Nations or stayingout of it. In the late 'thirtiesyou wanted to oppose
the Axis Powers by all means short of war or you wanted to abstain
from intervening.What separates the "utopian" from the "realist"
position cannot be so sharplyexpressedin termsof alternativeforeign
policies.The verysane policiescan be and are beingsupportedby both
schools of thought.What sets them apart is not necessarilya matter
of practical judgment,but of philosophiesand standards of thought.
The issue which the presentdebate raises concernsthe natureof all
politics and, more particularly,of the American traditionin foreign
policy. The historyof modernpoliticalthoughtis the storyof a contest
between two schools whichdifferfundamentallyin theirconceptionof
the nature of man, society,and politics. One believes that a rational
and moral political order, derived from universally valid abstract
961

962 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW
principles,can be achieved hereand now. It assumes the essentialgood-

ness and infinitemalleability of human nature and attributes the
failureof the social order to measure up to the rational standards to
lack of knowledgeand understanding,obsolescentsocial institutions,
or the depravityof certainisolated individualsor groups. It trustsin
education, reform,and the sporadic use of forceto remedythese defi-
ciencies.'
The otherschool believes that the world,imperfectas it is fromthe
rational point of view, is the result of forceswhich are inherentin
human nature.To improvethe worldone must workwiththose forces,
not against them. This being inherentlya world of opposinginterests
and of conflictamongthem,moralprinciplescan neverbe fullyrealized,
but at best approximatedthroughthe ever temporarybalancing of
interestsand the ever precarioussettlementof conflicts.This school,
then,sees in a systemof checks and balances a universalprinciplefor
all pluralistsocieties.2It appeals to historicprecedentratherthan to
abstractprinciples,and aims at achievementofthelesserevil ratherthan
of the absolute good.
This conflictbetween two basic conceptionsof man and politics is
at the bottomof the presentcontroversy.It is the same conflictwhich
found its classic expressionin the polemic of Burke against the phi-
losophy of the French Revolution. Given the sad state of political
thoughtin ourtime,it wouldbe vain to expectthe spokesmenofpolitical
realismto speak withthe voice of Burke and the defendersof political
utopianismto measureup to the standardsof Condorcetand Rousseau.
Yet one has a rightto expect that scholars discuss the issue without
resortto invectiveand with properregard for establishedfacts.3
1 This is the ideal type of the utopian position rather than the empirical description of
any particular historic type. In actuality, and this is true particularly of the present, the
utopian position in international affairs is not always consistent with its philosophic
premises.
2 It ought not to need special emphasis that a principle of social conduct, in contrast to
a law of nature, allows of, and even presupposes, conduct in violation of the principle.
Robert W. Tucker, in "Professor Morgenthau's Theory of Political 'Realism'" in this
REVIEW, Vol. 46, pp. 214-224 (March, 1952), has missed this and many other points in his
zeal to find contradictions where there are none.
"This [the realist] doctrine," writes one historian-Frank Tannenbaum, "The
Balance of Power versus the Co6rdinate State," Political Science Quarterly,Vol. 67, p. 173
(June, 1952)-"is confessedly, nay gleefully, amoral. It prides itself upon being realistic
and takes Machiavelli as its great teacher. It is contemptuous of the simple beliefs of
honest men, jeers at the sentimentalism of those who believe that men may strive for
peace among nations, and looks upon democracy as a hindrance to skilled diplomacy. It
looks with a certain derisive superiority upon the great leaders of this nation from Jeffer-
son and John Quincy Adams to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and
describes them as moralistic and sentimental, and suggests that our models ought to be

ANOTHER "GREAT DEBATE": THE NATIONAL INTEREST OF THE U. S. 963
In orderto refutea theorywhichpretendsto be scientific,it is first

necessaryto understandwhat a scientifictheoryis. A scientifictheoryis
an attemptto bringorderand meaningto a mass of phenomenawhich
withoutit would remaindisconnectedand unintelligible.Any one who
disputes the scientificcharacterof such a theoryeithermust produce
a theorysuperiorin these scientificfunctionsto the one attacked or
must, at the very least, demonstratethat the facts as they actually
are do not lend themselvesto the interpretation whichthe theoryhas
put upon them. When a historiantells us that the balance of power is
not a universalprincipleof politics,domesticand international,that it
was practiced in Europe only for a limited period and never by the
United States, that it ruinedthe statesthat practicedit,' it is incumbent
upon him to tell us how we can dispose by means of theoryof the his-
toric data by which, for instance, David Hume demonstratedthe
universalityofthe balance of powerand Paul Scott Mowrer5and Alfred
Vagts6 its practice by the United States; what Kautilya was writing
about in the fourthcenturyB. C. when he summarized-thetheoretical
and practical traditionof Indian statecraftin termsof the balance of
power;what the Greekcitystates,the Roman republic,and themedieval
Richelieu,Clemenceauand Bismarck.Its adherentsbelieve that internationalwars in-
stead of beingmade by men and supportedby institutionshumanlycontrivedhave their
originin the natureof man himselfand are inevitable."
Anotherhistorian,ArthurSchlesinger, Jr.,in "Policy and National Interest,"Partisan
Review,Vol. 18, p. 709 (Nov.-Dec., 1951), however,gives AmbassadorKennan a clean
bill of moral health. "But what differentiates," he writes,"the Kennan approach from
that of, forexample,the followersof ProfessorHans J. Morgenthauis that he takes the
revelationsofinternationalamoralityin his stride; morethanthat,he comprehends them
in his understandingof the tragedyof history.Mr. Kennan, in otherwords,is deeply
moral,ratherthan moralistic,like JudgeHull, or immoral,like the boys who have just
discoveredthat politicsinvolvepower."-
"This dreadfuldoctrine,"we are told (by Tannenbaum,pp. 173-174), "has now won
wide acceptance by teachersand scholarsin the fieldof internationalrelationsand has,
in fact,become the leading themein such circlesin many of our largestuniversities.It
has become the scienceof internationalrelations-and who would quarrelwith science,
especiallywhenit comespackaged in good clear Englishand fromhighsources?But it is
not science.It is, in fact,onlypoor logic based upon falsepremises,and its claimto be a
scienceis onlya bit ofunholyconceit."
It may be remarkedin passingthat to dispose of a scientifictheoryas "fashionable"
or a "fad," as some do withregardto politicalrealism,may reveal somethingabout the
state of mind of the writer,but reveals nothingat all about the scientificvalue of the
theory.
4 Tannenbaum,in the articlecitedabove, and in "The AmericanTraditionin Foreign
Relations," ForeignAffairs,Vol. 30, pp. 31-50 (Oct., 1951).
Our ForeignAffairs(New York, 1924), pp. 246 ff.
B"The United States and the Balance of Power," The Journalof Politics,Vol. 3, pp.
401-449 (Nov., 1941).

emperorsand popes were doing if they did not apply the principles
of the balance of power; and how the nations which eitherneglected
these principlesor applied themwronglysuffered political and military
defeatand even extinction,whilethe nationwhichapplied these princi-
ples most consistentlyand consciously,that is, Great Britain,enjoyed
unrivalledpower foran unparalleledlengthof time.
The historianwho wishesto replacethe balance of poweras the guid-
ing principleof Americanforeignpolicy with the "humanitarianand
pacific traditions"of the coordinatee'state"7 must firstof all explain
how it has come about that the thirteenoriginalstates expanded into
the full breadth and a good deal of the length of a continent,until
today the strategicfrontiersof the United States.run parallel to the
coastline of Asia and along the River Elbe. If such are the resultsof
policies based upon "humanitarian and pacific traditions,"never in
the historyof the world has virtue been more bountifullyrewarded!
Yet our historianmust explain not only the great sweep of American
expansion,but also the specificforeignpolicies which in theirhistoric
succession make up that sweep. Is it easier to explain.the successive
shiftsof American support from Great Britain to France and back
again fromthe beginningof King George's War in 1744 to the War of
1812 in termsof the "coordinatestate" than in termsof the balance of
power? The same question mightbe asked about the postponementof
the recognitionof the independenceof the Spanish coloniesuntil 1822,
whenthe Floridas had been.acquiredfromSpain and Spain had thereby
been deprivedof the abilityto challengethe United States fromwithin
the hemisphere.The same question mightbe asked about the Monroe
Doctrine itself, about Lincoln's policies toward Great Britain and
France,and about our successivepolicies withregardto Mexico and the
Caribbean. One could go on and pick out at randomany foreignpolicy
pursuedby the United States fromthe beginningto 1919 and one would
hardly finda policy, with the exceptionperhaps of the War of 1812,
which could not be made intelligibleby referenceto the national
interestdefinedin termsof power-political, military,and economic-
rather than by referenceto the principleof the "coordinate state."
This inevitableoutcomeof such an inquiryis well summarizedin these
words:
Ease and prosperityhave made us wish the whole world to be as happy and
well to do as ourselves;and we have supposed that institutionsand principles
like our own werethe simple prescriptionformakingthem so. And yet, when
7Tannenbaum, "The Balance of Power versus the Co6rdinate State," (cited above,
note 3), p. 173.

issues of our own interestarose, we have not been unselfish.We have shown
ourselves kin to all the world,when it came to pushing an advantage. Our
action against Spain in the Floridas, and against Mexico on the coasts of the
Pacific; our attitude toward firstthe Spaniards, and then the French, with
regard to the control of the Mississippi; the unpityingforcewith which we
thrustthe Indians to the wall wherevertheystood in our way, have suited our
professionsof peacefulnessand justice and liberalityno betterthan the aggres-
sions of other nations that were strong and not to be gainsaid. Even Mr.
Jefferson, philanthropistand champion of peaceable and modest government
thoughhe was, exemplifiedthis double temperof the people he ruled. "Peace
is ourpassion," he had declared; but the passion abated whenhe saw the mouth
ofthe Mississippiabout to pass intothe hands of France. Though he had loved
France and hated England, he did not hesitate then what language to hold.
"There is on the globe," he wroteto Mr. Livingstonat Paris, "one singlespot
the possessorof whichis our naturaland habitualenemy.The day that France
takes possessionofNew Orleansseals the unionoftwo nations,who,in conjunc-
tion,can maintainexclusivepossessionofthe sea. From that momentwe must
marryourselvesto the Britishfleetand nation." Our interestsmustmarchfor-
ward, altruiststhoughwe are; othernationsmustsee to it that theystand off,
and do not seek to stay us.
This realist appraisal of the Americantraditionin foreignpolicy was
published in 1901 in the AtlanticMonthly.Its author was a professor
of jurisprudenceand political economy at Princetonby the name of
Woodrow Wilson.8
Nothingmoreneeds to be said to demonstratethat factsdo not sup-
port a revisionof Americandiplomatichistorywhichtriesto substitute
"humanitarianand pacifisttraditions"and the "coordinatestate" for
power politics and the balance of power as the guiding principleof
American foreignpolicy. What, then, does support it? Three things:
the way American statesmen have spoken about American foreign
policy; the legal fictionof the "coordinatestate"; finally,and foremost,
an emotionalurge to justifyAmericanforeignpolicy in humanitarian,
pacifistterms.
It is elementarythat the characterof a foreignpolicy can be ascer-
tained only throughthe examinationof the political acts performed
and of the foreseeableconsequences of these acts. Thus we can find
out what statesmen have actually done, and from the foreseeable
consequencesof theiracts we can surmisewhat theirobjectives might
have been. Yet examinationof the factsis not enough.To give meaning
to the factual raw material of history,we must approach historical
realitywitha kind of rational outline,a map whichsuggeststo us the
* "Democracy and Efficiency," Atlantic Monthly,Vol. 87, pp. 293-294 (March, 1901).

possible meaningsof history.In other words,we put ourselvesin the

position of a statesman who must meet a certain problem of foreign
policy under certain circumstancesand ask ourselves, what are the
rational alternativesfromwhich a statesman may choose who must
meet this problemunder these circumstances,presumingalways that
he acts in a rational manner,and which of these rational alternatives
was this particularstatesman,acting underthese circumstances,likely
to choose? It is the testingof this rationalhypothesisagainstthe actual
facts and their consequences which gives meaning to the facts of
historyand makes the scientificwritingof political historypossible.
In the processof writingthe historyof foreignpolicy the interpreta-
tions by statesmenof their own acts, especially if they are made for
public consumption,must needs have a strictlysubsidiaryplace. The
public self-interpretation by actors on the political scene is itself,of
course, a political act which seeks to present a certain policy to its
presumedsupportersin termsof theirmoral and political folkloreand
to those againstwhichit is directedin termswhichintendto embarrass
and deceive. Such declarationsmay indeedshed lightupon the character
and objectivesofthe policypursuediftheyare consideredin conjunction
with,and in subordinationto, rational hypotheses,actions, and likely
consequences.Yet it is quite a different matterto interpretthe American
traditionofforeignpolicyin the lightofa collectionofofficialstatements
which, like most such statements,present humanitarianand pacifist
justificationsforthe policiespursued.If anybodyshouldbe bold enough
to writea historyof worldpoliticswithso uncriticala methodhe would
easily and well-nighinevitablybe driven to the conclusionthat from
Timur to Hitler and Stalin the foreignpolicies of all nations were
inspiredby the ideals of humanitarianismand pacifism.The absurdity
of the resultis commensuratewiththe defectsof the method.
It is onlyfroma methodwhichaccepts the declarationsof statesmen
as evidence of the characterof the policies pursued,that the principle
of the "coordinate state" receives a semblance of plausibility.States-
men and internationallawyershave been wont to speak of the "equal
dignity"of all states, regardlessof "wealth, power,size, population or
culture,"9whichI take the principleof the "coordinatestate" to mean.
It is also referredto as the principleof "federalismin internationalrela-
tions."'" As itsprimeexamplesare citedthe relationsamongstthe states
of the Union, the states of the Americansystem,the membersof the
Commonwealthof Nations, and the membersof the Swiss Confedera-
tion.If the wholeworldwereorganizedin accordancewiththisprinciple,
9 Tannenbaum,p. 177. 10Ibid.

as are alreadythesefourpoliticalentities,it is assumedthat the freedom,

dignity,and peace of all nationswould thenbe assured.
There is no need to examine the theoreticaland practical meritsof
the principleof the "coordinate state," because for none of the four
political entities mentioned does the idea of the "coordinate state"
providethe principleofpoliticalorganization.The equality ofthe states
as the political foundationof the United States became obsolescent
when Chief JusticeMarshall's Supreme Court resolved the ambiguity
of the Constitutionin favorof the federalgovernment,and it became
obsolete when the Civil War proved Chief Justice Marshall's point.
The equality of the states survives today only in the shadow and by
virtue of the federal government'spolitical supremacy,and without
the cohesiveforceof that supremacytherewould be no union of equal
states to begin with. That these powers of the federalgovernmentare
limited and qualified by the principleof federalism,that is, by the
constitutionally grantedpowersofthe states,is quite a different matter;
it concernsthe distributionof powersbetweenfederalgovernmentand
states withina generalsystemof checksand balances, but has nothing
to do withthe equality of the states as the alleged politicalfoundation
of the American system of government.With the exception of the
equality of senatorial representation,the principleof the equality of
the states is today, as it has been foralmost a century,devoid of politi-
cal content. It serves only as a principleof regional organization,of
administrative decentralization, and, above all, of constitutional
rhetoric. What it really signifieswas pointed out more than fifty
years ago by W. A. Dunning when he summarizedhis answer to the
question "Are the states equal underthe Constitution?"by sayingthat
"the theoryof equal states fallsto the ground.""
Similarly,the federalismof Switzerlandis the result of a long series
of civil wars,the last one foughta littlemorethan a centuryago, which
establishedthe predominanceof the German-speakingcantons within
the confederation.Here too, it is the existenceof predominantpower,
located in one segmentof the federalsystem,which makes federalism
possible in the firstplace.
By the same token, the unchallengeablesupremacy of the United
States withinthe WesternHemispherehas throughoutbeen the back-
bone of the system of Americanstates. As long as this supremacyis
secure,thereis, on the one hand, no need forthe United States to assert
it in the political and militarysphere,and, taking it for granted,the
United States can well affordto pursue a policy of the Good Neighbor;
11 William Archibald Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstructionand Related
Topics (New York, 1931), p. 351.

and thereis, on the otherhand, no opportunityforthe othermembers

of the systemto challengethat supremacyeffectively. This is what the
principleof the coordinatee state" amounts to in the WesternHemi-
sphere. Consequently,wheneverthere was even a remote possibility
that the supremacyof the United States mightbe challenged,generally
throughinstigationfromoutside the hemisphere,the United States as-
serted its superiorpowerwithinthe hemisphereand acted as all states
must act under similarconditions.
Whateverpossibilityforcommonpoliticalactionthereremainsamong
the membersofthe Commonwealthof Nations is the resultof the inter-
ests which these membersmay have in common.In other words,the
memberstates may worktogetheror each ofthemmay workwithother
nations,as theirinterestsdictate. Their membershipin the Common-
wealth, as the examples of India, South Africa,Australia, and New
Zealand clearlyshow,has no influenceupon thisdecision;that member-
ship is but a faintremembranceof the timeswhen Great Britain could
.securecooperationamong the memberstates on its termsby virtueof
its superiorpower.
What, then, have these four examples of the "coordinate state" in
common which would establish them as a distincttype of interstate
relationship,and what conclusionscan be drawn fromthem for the
organizationof the 'world? The only thing that these four examples
seem to have really in commonis the legal stipulationof the equality
of the membersof the respectivesystemsand this characteristicis not
peculiarto them,but a generalprincipleof internationallaw applicable
to all sovereignstates. In the politicalspheretheyseem to have nothing
in commonat all. What they tend to show, however,is the decisive
importanceof the distributionof political power for the operationof
federal and egalitarianrelationsamong states. The political cohesion
of a federalsystemis the resultof superiorpower located in some part
of it. It is by virtue of its superiorpower that the predominantpart
can affordto grantthe othermembersof the federalsystema measure.
of equality in the non-politicalsphere.These observationsbringus back
to powerpoliticsand the balance of powerto whichthe principleof the
"coordinatestate" was supposed to be the alternative.
In truth, it is not the disinterestedconsiderationof facts which
has given birthto the theoryof the "coordinatestate." That theoryis
rather the response to an emotional urge, and since this emotion is
not peculiarto a particularauthorbut typical of a popular reactionto
the new role which the United States must play in world affairs,it
deservesa briefanalysis.
One of the greatexperiencesof our time"whichhave impressedthem-

selvesupon the Americanmindis the emergence of the UnitedStates

as a nationamongothernations,exposedto the same opportunities,
temptations, risks,and liabilitiesto whichothernationshave been
traditionally exposed.This experience becomesthemoreshockingifit
is comparedwiththe expectationwithwhichwe foughtthe Second
WorldWar. We expectedfromthatwara reaffirmation of the secure,
detached,and independent' positionin worldaffairs whichwe had in-
heritedfromthe FoundingFathersand whichwe had been successful
in preserving at least to the FirstWorldWar. By avoidingwhatwe
thoughthad beenWilson'smistakes,we expectedto emergefromthat
warifnotmoreindependent, certainly moresecurethanwe werewhen
we enteredit. In fact,probablynot evenin the earlydays ofthe Re-
publicwerewe moreexposedto dangerfromabroadthanwe aretoday,
and neverhad we lessfreedom ofactionin takingcareofourinterests
thanwe have today.
It is naturallyshockingto recognize thata happychapterin thehis-
toryofthenationandin one'sownwayoflifehas cometo an end.There
are thosewhoreconcilethemselves to theinevitable, albeitwithsorrow
ratherthan withglee,and tryto-applythe lessonsof the past to the
tasksat hand.Thereare otherswhotryto escapefroma disappointing
and threatening realityintotherealmoffantasy.Threesuchescapist
fantasieshavearisenin ourmidstin responseto thechallenge ofAmeri-
can worldleadershipand power: the fantasyof needlessAmerican
participation in war,thefantasyofAmericantreason,and thefantasy
ofAmericaninnocence.
The firstofthesefantasiespresumesthatthepresentpredicament is
a resultnot of necessitybut offolly,the follyofAmericanstatesmen
who needlesslyintervenedin two worldwars. The second of these
fantasiesattributesthe presentpredicament to treasonin highplaces
wherebythe fruitsof victorywerehandedto the enemy.The thirdof
thesefantasiesdeniesthatthepredicament is real and prefersto think
of it as an intellectual fraudperpetrated upon the Americanpeople.
To supportthisfictional denialoftheactualitiesofthepresent, it draws
upon a fictional accountof-thepast. The UnitedStatesdoes not need
to bear at presentthe intellectual, moral,and politicalburdenswhich
go with involvement in powerpoliticsand the maintenanceof the
balanceofpower;forit has neverbornethemin thepast,neverhaving
been thus involved.The goldenage of past politicalinnocencesheds
its glow upon a but seemingly less innocentpresentand promisesa
futurein whichall the worldwill followthe exampleof America,
forswear powerpoliticsand thebalanceofpower,and accepttheprinci-
ple ofthe "coordinate state."Ourrearmament program, as exemplified

in the AtlanticSecurityPact, we are told,has nothingto do withthe

balanceofpowerbut aimsat the"organization ofas muchoftheworld
as we can upon the basis of the coordinatestate.... It may prove
impossibleunderpresentconditionsto build such a systemwithout
havingto fighta warwithRussia,butthenat leastwe willbe fighting,
as we did before,forthe thingwe considerworthdefending withour
lives and treasure."'2Thus a fictionalaccountof the Americanpast,
begunas an act of uncalled-for patrioticpiety,issuesin an ideology
fora thirdworldwar.Escape we mustfromtheunfamiliar, unpleasant,
and dangerous present,firstintothepoliticalinnocenceofthepast and
fromthereintotheimmediate future ofa thirdworldwar,beyondwhich
therevivedand universalized innocenceofthemoredistantfuturewill
surelylie.
We havesaid thatto presenttheAmerican traditionin foreign
policy
as havingbeen freefromconcernwithpowerpoliticsand the balance
of poweris not warrantedby the factsof Americanhistory.Yet it
mightstillbe argued,and it is actuallybeingargued,that,regardless
of the evidenceof history, the Americanpeoplewillnot be reconciled
to powerpoliticsand thebalanceofpowerand willsupportonlypolicies
based upon abstractmoralprinciples.Whilein the past the United
Statesmighthave pursuedbalanceofpowerpoliciesand whileit might
be a goodthingifit diddo so again,theAmerican peoplewillnotstand
forit. Heretheemotionalappealto patrioticpietyis joinedby calcula-
tionsofpoliticalexpediency. Yet thecase formisrepresenting American
history has nothingto gainfromeither.
Thereis a strongtendency in all historiography
to glorifythenational
past,and in popularpresentations that tendencytakeson the aspects
ofthe jingoistwhitewash. Even so penetrating a mindas JohnStuart
Mill'scoulddeliverhimself ofan essayin whichhe proved,no doubtto
the satisfactionof manyof his Englishreadersbut certainlyof few
others,thatGreatBritainhad neverinterfered in the affairsof Euro-
pean nationsand had interfered in thoseof the Indianstatesonlyfor
theirown good.'3Yet it is the measureof a nation'smaturityto be
able to recognizeits past forwhatit actuallyis. Whyshouldwe not
admitthatAmerican foreign policyhas beengenerally hardheadedand
practicalandat timesruthless? WhyshouldwedenyJefferson's cunning,
say,in thePugetSoundaffair, thecrueltywithwhichtheIndianswere
treated,.andjthefaithlessness with whichthetreatieswiththeIndians
werecast aside? We knowthat thisis the way all nationsare when
12 Tannenbaum,pp. 195-196.
13 Few Words on Non-Intervention,"Dissertationsand Discussions: Political,
"A
Philosophical,and Historical(London, 1875), pp. 153-178.

theirinterestsare at stake-so cruel,so faithless,so cunning.We know

that the United States has refrainedfromseekingdominionsbeyondthe
seas not because it is more virtuousthan other nations, but because
it had the betterpart ofa continentto colonize.
As has been pointed out elsewhereat greaterlength,the man in the
street,unsophisticatedas he is and uninformedas he may be, has a
surergrasp of the essentialsof foreignpolicy and a more maturejudg-
ment of its basic issues than many of the intellectualsand politicians
who pretendto speak forhim and caterto what theyimaginehis preju-
dices to be. During the recent'war the ideologues of the Atlantic
Charter,the Four Freedoms,and the United Nations were constantly
complainingthat the American soldier did not know what he was
fightingfor.Indeed, if he was fighting forsome utopian ideal, divorced
fromthe concreteexperiencesand interestsof the country,then the
complaint was well grounded. However, if he was fightingfor the
territorialintegrityof the nation and forits survival as a freecountry
where he could live, think,and act as he pleased, then he had never
any doubt about what he was fightingfor.Ideological rationalizations
and justificationsare indeed the indispensable concomitantsof all
political action. Yet there is somethingunhealthy in a craving for
ideologicalintoxicationand in the inabilityto act and to see meritin
action except under the stimulantof grandioseideas and far-fetched
schemes.Have our intellectualsbecome, like Hamlet, too much beset
by doubt to act and, unlike Hamlet, compelled to still their doubts
by renouncingtheirsense of what is real?'The man in the streethas no
such doubts. It is true that ideologuesand demagoguescan sway him
by appealing to his emotions.But it is also true, as Americanhistory
showsin abundance and as the popularsuccessofAmbassadorKennan's
book demonstrates,that responsible statesmen can guide him by
awakeninghis latentunderstandingof the national interest.
II
Yet what is the national interest?How can we defineit and give it
the contentwhich will make it a'guide for action? This is one of the
relevantquestionsto whichthe currentdebate has givenrise.
It has been frequentlyargued against the realist conception of
foreignpolicy that its key concept, the national interest,does not
provide an acceptable standard for political action. This argumentis
in the main based upon two grounds:the elusivenessofthe conceptand
its susceptibilityto interpretations, such as limitlessimperialismand
narrownationalism,which are not in keepingwith the Americantra-
dition in foreignpolicy. The argumenthas substance as far as it goes,
but it does not invalidate the usefulnessof the concept.

The concept of the national interestis similarin two respectsto the

"great generalities"of the Constitution,- such as the general welfare
and due process.It containsa residualmeaningwhichis inherentin the
conceptitself,but beyondthese minimumrequirementsits contentcan
run the whole gamut of meaningswhichare logicallycompatiblewith
it. That contentis determinedby the politicaltraditionsand the total
cultural context withinwhich a nation formulatesits foreignpolicy.
The concept of the national interest,then,containstwo elements,one
that is logicallyrequiredand in that-sensenecessary,and one that is
variable and determinedby circumstances.
Any foreignpolicywhichoperatesunderthe standardof the national
interestmust obviouslyhave some referenceto the physical,political,
and culturalentitywhichwe call a nation. In a worldwherea number
of sovereignnationscompetewithand oppose each otherforpower,the
foreignpolicies of all nations must necessarilyreferto their survival
as theirminimumrequirements.Thus all nations do what they cannot
help but do: protect their physical, political, and cultural identity
against encroachmentsby othernations.
It has been suggestedthat this reasoningerects the national state
into the last word in politicsand the national interestinto an absolute
standard forpolitical action. This, however,is not quite the case. The
idea of interestis indeed of the essence of politics and, as such, un-
affectedby the circumstancesof time and place. Thucydides' state-
ment, born of the experiencesof ancient Greece, that "identity of
interestis the surest of bonds whetherbetween states or individuals"
was taken up in the nineteenthcenturyby Lord Salisbury's remark
that "the only bond of union that endures" among nationsis "the ab-
sence of all clashinginterests."The perennialissue betweenthe realist
and utopian schools of thoughtover the nature of politics,to which
we have referredbefore,mightwell be formulatedin termsof concrete
interestsvs. abstract principles.Yet -whilethe concernof politicswith
interestis perennial,the connectionbetweeninterestand the national
state is a productof history.
The nationalstate itselfis obviouslya productof historyand as such
destined to yield in time to different modes of political organization.
As long as the worldis politicallyorganizedinto nations,the national
interestis indeed the last word in world politics. When the national
state will have been replaced by anothermode of organization,foreign
policymust then protectthe interestin survival of that new organiza-
tion. For the benefitof those who insist upon discardingthe national
state and constructingsupranational organizationsby constitutional
fiat,it must be pointed out that these new organizationalformswill

eithercome into being throughconquest or else throughconsentbased

upon the mutual recognitionof the national interestsof the nations
concerned;for no nation will foregoits freedomof action if it has no
reason to expect proportionatebenefitsin compensationfor that loss.
This is true of treatiesconcerningcommerceor fisheriesas it is true of
the great compacts,such as the European Coal and Steel Community,
throughwhich nations try to create supranationalformsof organiza-
tion. Thus, by an apparentparadox, what is historicallyrelativein the
idea of the national interestcan be overcome'only throughthe promo-
tionin concertofthe nationalinterestofa numberofnations.
The survival of a political unit, such as a nation, in its identityis
the irreducibleminimum,the necessaryelementof its interestsvis-a-vis
other units. Taken in isolation,the determinationof its contentin a
concretesituationis relativelysimple; forit encompassesthe integrity
of the nation's territory, of its politicalinstitutions,and of its culture.
Thus bipartisanshipin foreignpolicy, especially in times of war, has
been most easily achieved in the promotionof these minimumrequire-
ments of the national interest.'The situation is different with respect
to the variable elementsof the national interest.All the cross currents
of personalities,public opinion, sectional interests,partisan politics,
and politicaland moralfolkwaysare broughtto bear upon theirdetermi-
nation. In consequence, the contributionwhich science can make to
this field,as to all fieldsof policy formation,is limited.It can identify
the differentagencies of the governmentwhich contributeto the
determinationof the variable elementsof the national interestand as-
sess their'relativeweight.It can separate the long-rangeobjectives of
foreignpolicy fromthe short-termones which are the means for the
achievementof the formerand can tentativelyestablishtheirrational
relations.Finally, it can analyze the variable elementsof the national
interestin termsof theirlegitimacyand theircompatibilitywith other
nationalvalues and withthe nationalinterestof othernations.We shall
address ourselvesbrieflyto the typicalproblemswithwhichthis analy-
sis must deal.
The legitimacyofthe nationalinterestmustbe determinedin the face
ofpossibleusurpationby subnational,other-national, and supranational
interests. On the subnational level we find group interests,represented
particularlyby ethnicand economicgroups,who tend to identifythem-
selves withthe nationalinterest.CharlesA. Beard has emphasized,how-
ever one-sidedly,the extentto whichthe economicinterestsof certain
groups have been presentedas those of the United States.14Group in-
14 The Idea of National Interest: An Analytical Study in American Foreign Policy (New
York, 1934).

terests exert, of course, constant pressureupon the conduct of our

foreignpolicy, claimingtheiridentitywith the national interest.It is,
however,doubtfulthat, with the exceptionof a few spectacular cases,
theyhave been successfulin determining the courseofAmericanforeign
policy. It is much more likely,given the nature of Americandomestic
politics,that Americanforeignpolicy,insofaras it is the object ofpres-
sures by sectionalinterests,will normallybe a compromisebetweendi-
vergentsectional interests.The concept of the national interest,as it
emergesfromthis contestas the actual guide forforeignpolicy,may
well fall shortof what would be rationallyrequiredby the overall in-
terestsof the United States. Yet the concept of the national interest
whichemergesfromthis contestof conflicting sectionalinterestsis also
more than any particularsectionalinterestor theirsum total. It is, as
it were,the lowest commondenominatorwheresectionalinterestsand
the national interestmeet in an uneasy compromisewhichmay leave
muchto be desiredin view of all the interestsconcerned.
The national interestcan be usurped by other-nationalinterestsin
two typicalways. The case of treasonby individuals,eitherout of con-
victionor forpay, needsonlyto be mentionedhere;forinsofaras treason
is committedon behalf of a foreigngovernmentratherthan a supra-
national principle,it is significantforpsychology,sociology,and crimi-
nology,but not forthe theoryof politics.The other case, however,is
importantnot onlyforthe theoryofpoliticsbut also forits practice,es-
peciallyin the United States.
National minoritiesin European countries,ethnic groups in the
UnitedStates,ideologicalminoritiesanywheremay identifythemselves,
eitherspontaneouslyor under the directionof the agents of a foreign
government, withthe interestsofthat foreigngovernmentand may pro-
mote theseinterestsunderthe guiseofthe nationalinterestofthe coun-
try whose citizensthey happen to be. The activitiesof the German-
AmericanBund in the United States in the 'thirtiesand of Communists
everywhereare cases in point. Yet the issue of the national interestvs.
other-national interestsmasqueradingas the nationalinteresthas arisen
constantlyin the United States in a less clear-cutfashion.
A countrywhich had been settled by consecutive waves of "for-
eigners"was bound to findit particularlydifficult to identifyits own
national interestagainst alleged, seeming,or actual other-nationalin-
terestsrepresentedby certaingroupsamong its own citizens.Since vir-
tually all citizensof the United States are, as it were, "more or less"
foreign-born, those who were "less" so have frequentlynot resistedthe
temptation use this distinctionas a polemic weapon against late-
to
comerswho happenedto differfromthemin theirconceptionof the na-

tionalinterestof the United States. Frequently,thisrationalizationhas

been dispensed with and a conceptionof foreignpolicy with which a
writerhappened to disagree has been attributedoutrightto foreign
sympathyor influenceor worse. British influenceand interestshave
served as standard argumentsin debates on Americanforeignpolicy.
Madison, in his polemic against Hamilton on the occasion of Washing-
ton's NeutralityProclamation of 1793, identifiedthe Federalist posi-
tion withthat of "the foreigners and degeneratecitizensamongus, who
hate our republicangovernment,and the Frenchrevolution,"'5and the
accusationmet witha favorableresponsein a majorityof Congressand
of public opinion.However, these traditionalattemptsto discreditdis-
sentingopinionas being influencedby foreigninterestsshould not ob-
scure the real issue, whichis the peculiar vulnerabilityof the national
interestof the United States to usurpationby the interestsof otherna-
tions.
The usurpationofthe nationalinterestby supranationalinterestscan
derivein our time fromtwo sources: religiousbodies and international
organizations.The competitionbetween churchand state fordetermi-
nation of certaininterestsand policies,domesticand international,has
been an intermittent issue throughoutthe historyof the national state.
Here, too, the legitimatedefenseofthe nationalinterestagainstusurpa-
tionhas frequently, especiallyin the United States,degeneratedintothe
demagogicstigmatizationofdissentingviewsas beinginspiredby Rome
and, hence,beingincompatiblewiththe nationalinterest.Yet here,too,
the misuse of: the issue for demagogic purposes must be considered
apart fromthe legitimacyofthe issue itself.
The more acute problemarises at the presenttime fromthe impor-
tance whichthe public and governmentofficials, at least in theirpublic
utterances,attributeto the values representedand the policiespursued
by internationalorganizationseitheras alternativesor supplementsto
the values and policiesforwhichthe national governmentstands. It is
frequentlyassertedthat the foreignpolicyof the United States pursues
no objectives apart fromthose of the United Nations, that, in other
words,the foreignpolicyof the United States is actually identicalwith
the policyofthe UnitedNations. This assertioncannotreferto anything
real in actual politicsto supportit. For the constitutionalstructureof
internationalorganizations,such as the United Nations, and theirpro-
cedural practicesmake it impossibleforthem to pursue interestsapart
fromthose of the member-stateswhich dominate theirpolicy-forming
16 "Helvidius, in Answer to Pacificus, on President Washington's Proclamation of
Neutrality," in Lettersand other Writings of James Madison (Philadelphia, 1867), Vol. 1,
p. 611.

bodies. The identitybetweenthe interestsofthe UnitedNations and the

United States can only referto the successfulpolicies of the United
States within the United Nations throughwhich the support of the
United Nations is being securedforthe policiesof the United States.16
The assertion,then, is mere polemic,different fromthe one discussed
in
previously that the identificationof a certainpolicy with a supra-
national interestdoes not seek to reflectdiscreditupon the former,but
to bestowupon it a dignitywhichthenationalinterestpureand simpleis
supposed to lack.
The real issue in view of the problemthat concernsus here is not
whetherthe so-called interestsof the United Nations, which do not
exist apart fromthe interestsof its most influentialmembers,have
supersededthe nationalinterestof the United States,but forwhat kind
ofintereststhe UnitedStates has securedUnitedNationssupport.While
these interestscannot be United Nations interests,theydo not need to
be national interestseither.Here we are in the presenceof that modern
phenomenonwhichhas been variouslydescribedas "utopianism,""sen-
timentalism,""moralism," the "legalistic-moralisticapproach." The
commondenominatorofall thesetendenciesin modernpoliticalthought
is the substitutionforthe national interestof a supranationalstandard
ofactionwhichis generallyidentifiedwithan internationalorganization,
such as the United Nations. The national interestis here not being
usurped by sub- or supranational interestswhich,howeverinferiorin
worthto the national interest,are neverthelessreal and worthyof con-
siderationwithintheirpropersphere.What challengesthe national in-
teresthere is a mere figmentof the imagination,a product of wishful
thinkingwhichis postulatedas a valid normforinternationalconduct,
withoutbeingvalid eitherthereor anywhereelse. At thispointwe touch
the core of the present controversybetween utopianism and realism
in internationalaffairs;we shall returnto it later in this paper.
The nationalinterestas such mustbe defendedagainstusurpationby
non-nationalinterests.Yet once that task is accomplished,a rational
ordermustbe establishedamongthe values whichmake up the national
interestand among the resourcesto be committedto them. While the
interestswhicha nation may pursue in its relationwith othernations
are of infinite.variety
and magnitude,the resourceswhichare available
forthe pursuitof such interestsare necessarilylimitedin quantityand
16See, on thispoint,Hans J. Morgenthau,"InternationalOrganizationsand Foreign
Policy,"in Foundations A Politicaland CulturalAppraisal, Eleventh
ofWorldOrganization:
Symposiumof the Conferenceon Science, Philosophyand Religion, edited by Lyman
Bryson,Louis Finkelstein,Harold D. Lasswell, R. M. MacIver (New York, 1952), pp.
377-383.

ANOTHER GREAT DEBATE: THE NATIONAL INTEREST OF THE U. S. 977
kind. No nation has the resourcesto promoteall desirable objectives

with equal vigor; all nations must thereforeallocate their scarce re-
sourcesas rationallyas possible.The indispensableprecondition'of such
rational allocation is a clear understandingof the distinctionbetween
the necessaryand variable elementsof the national interest.Given the
contentiousmanner in which in democraciesthe variable elementsof
the national interestare generallydetermined,the advocates of an ex-
tensive'conceptionof the national interestwill inevitablypresentcer-
tain variable elementsof the national interestas thoughtheirattain-
ment were necessary for the nation's survival. In other words, the
necessaryelementsof the national interesthave a tendencyto swallow
up the variableelementsso that 'inthe end all kindsof objectives,actual
or potential,are justifiedin termsof national survival. Such arguments
have been advanced, for instance, in support of the rearmamentof
WesternGermanyand of the defenseof Formosa. They must be sub-
jected to rational scrutinywhich will determine,howevertentatively,
theirapproximateplace in the scale ofnationalvalues.
The same problempresentsitselfin its extremeformwhen a nation
pursues,or is asked to pursue,objectiveswhichare not onlyunnecessary
for its survival but tend to jeopardize it. Second-ratenations which
dream of playingthe role of great powers,such as Italy and Poland in
the interwarperiod, illustratethis point.-So do great powers which
dream of remakingthe world in their own image and embark upon
world-widecrusades,thus strainingtheirresourcesto exhaustion.Here
scientificanalysis has the urgenttask of pruningdown national objec-
tives to the measure of available resourcesin orderto make theirpur-
suit compatiblewithnationalsurvival.
Finally, the national interestof a nation whichis consciousnot only
of its own interestsbut also of that of othernationsmust be definedin
termscompatiblewith the latter. In a multinationalworldthis is a re-
quirementofpoliticalmorality;in an age oftotal war it is also one ofthe
conditionsforsurvival.
In connectionwith this problemtwo mutuallyexclusive arguments
have been advanced. On the one hand, it has been argued against the
theoryof internationalpoliticshere presentedthat the concept of the
national interestrevivesthe'eighteenth-century conceptof enlightened
self-interest,presumingthat the uniformlyenlightenedpursuitof their
self-interest by all individuals,as by all nations,will of itselfbe con-
ducive to a peaceful and harmonioussociety. On the other hand, the
point has been made that the pursuitof theirnational interestby all
nations makes war the permanentarbiter of conflictsamong them.
Neitherargumentis welltaken.

The concept of the national interestpresupposesneithera naturally

harmonious,peacefulworldnorthe inevitabilityofwar as a consequence
of the pursuitby all nationsof theirnationalinterest.Quite to the con-
trary,it assumes continuousconflictand threatof war,to be minimized
throughthe continuousadjustment of conflictinginterestsby diplo-
matic action. No such assumptionwould be warrantedif all nationsat
all times conceivedof theirnational interestonly in termsof theirsur-
vival and, in turn,definedtheirinterestin survival in restrictiveand
rational terms.As it is, theirconceptionof the nationalinterestis sub-
ject to all the hazards of misinterpretation, usurpation,and misjudg-
ment to whichreferencehas been made above. To minimizethese haz-
ards is the firsttask of a foreignpolicy whichseeks the defenseof the
nationalinterestby peacefulmeans. Its' secondtask is the defenseofthe
national interest,restrictivelyand rationallydefined,against the na-
tional interestsof othernationswhichmay or may not be thus defined.
If they're not,it becomesthe task of armed diplomacyto convincethe
nations concernedthat their legitimateinterestshave nothingto fear
froma restrictiveand rationalforeignpolicy and that theirillegitimate
interestshave nothingto gain in the face of armed mightrationallyem-
ployed.
III
We have said beforethat the utopian and realist positionsin inter-
national affairsdo not necessarilydifferin the policies they advocate,
but that they part company over theirgeneralphilosophiesof politics
and their way of thinkingabout matterspolitical. It does not follow
that the presentdebate is only of academic interestand withoutprac-
tical significance.Both camps, it is true,may supportthe same policy
for different reasons. Yet if the reasons are unsound,the soundnessof
the policies supportedby them is a mere coincidence,and these very
same reasonsmay be, and inevitablyare, invokedon otheroccasions in
supportof unsound policies. The nefariousconsequencesoffalsephilos-
ophies and wrongways ofthinkingmay forthe timebeingbe concealed
by the apparent success of policies derivedfromthem. You may go to
war,justifiedby yournation's interests,fora moral purposeand in dis-
regardof considerationsof power; and militaryvictoryseems to satisfy
both yourmoralaspirationsand yournation'sinterests.Yet the manner
in whichyou waged the war, achieved victory,and settled the peace
cannothelpreflecting yourphilosophyofpoliticsand yourway ofthink-
ing about politicalproblems.If these are in error,you may win victory
on the fieldof battle and still assist in the defeat of both your moral
principlesand the nationalinterestofyourcountry.

ANOTHER "GREAT DEBATE: THE NATIONAL INTEREST OF THE U. S. 979
Any numberof examplescould illustratethe real yet subtle practical

consequenceswhichfollowfromthe different positionstaken. We have
chosentwo: collectivesecurityin Korea and the liberationofthe nations
that are captives of Communism.A case forboth policies can be made
fromboth the utopian and realistpositions,but withsignificantdiffer-
ences in the emphasisand substanceof the policiespursued.
Collectivesecurityas an abstractprincipleofutopianpoliticsrequires
that all nationscome to the aid ofa victimofaggressionby resistingthe
aggressorwith all means necessaryto frustratehis aims. Once the case
of aggressionis established,the duty to act is unequivocal. Its extent
may be affectedby concernforthe nation's survival; obviouslyno na-
tion will commitoutrightsuicide in the service of collectivesecurity.
But beyond that elemental limitationno considerationof interestor
power, eitherwith regardto the aggressoror his victimor the nation
actingin the latter'sdefense,can qualifythe obligationto act underthe
principleof collectivesecurity.Thus high officialsof our government
have declaredthat we intervenedin Korea not forany narrowinterestof
ours but in supportofthe moral principleof collectivesecurity.
Collectivesecurityas a concreteprincipleof realistpolicy is the age-
old maxim, "Hang togetheror hang separately,"in moderndress. It
recognizesthe need for nationA under certaincircumstancesto defend
nation B against attack by nation C. That need is determined,first,by
the interestwhichA has in the territorial integrityof B and by the rela-
tion of that interestto all the otherinterestsof A as well as to the re-
sourcesavailable forthe supportof all those interests.Furthermore,A
must take into account the power whichis at the disposal of aggressor
C forfightingA and B as over against the power available to A and B
forfightingC. The same calculationmust be carriedon concerningthe
power of the likelyallies of C as over against those of A and B. Before
going to war forthe defenseof South Korea in the name of collective
security,an American adherent of political realism would have de-
mandedan answerto thefollowingfourquestions: First,what is our in-
terestin the preservationof the independenceof South Korea; second,
what is our power to defendthat independenceagainst North Korea;
third,what is our powerto defendthat independenceagainst China and
the Soviet Union; and fourth,what are the chancesforpreventingChina
and the Soviet Union fromenteringthe Korean War?
In view of the principleof collectivesecurity,interpretedin utopian
terms,our interventionin Korea was a foregoneconclusion.The inter-
pretationof this principlein realisttermsmightor mightnot, depend-
ing upon the concretecircumstancesof interestand power,have led us
to the same conclusion.In the executionof the policy of collectivese-

curitytheutopianhad to be indifferent to thepossibilityofChineseand

Russianintervention, exceptforhisresolution to applytheprincipleof
collectivesecurityto anybodywhowouldintervene on the side of the
aggressor. The realist could nothelpweighing thepossibility ofthein-
tervention ofa greatpoweron thesideoftheaggressor in termsofthe
interests engagedand thepoweravailableon theotherside.17
The Trumanadministration could not bringitselfto takingreso-
lutelythe utopian or the realistposition.It resolvedto intervenein
good measureon utopiangroundsand in spiteof militaryadvice to
thecontrary; it allowedthemilitary commander to advanceto theYalu
Riverindisregard oftheriskoftheintervention ofa greatpoweragainst
whichcollective security couldbe carriedoutonlybymeansofa general
war,and thenrefusedto pursuethe war withfulleffectiveness on the
realistgroundsof the risk of a thirdworldwar. Thus Mr. Truman
in 1952is caughtin thesame dilemmafromwhichMr. Baldwincould
extricatehimselfin 1936 on the occasionof the League of Nations
sanctionsagainstItaly's attack upon Ethiopiaonlyat an enormous
loss to Britishprestige.Collectivesecurityas a defenseof the status
quo shortof a generalwar can be effective onlyagainstsecond-rate
powers.Appliedagainsta majorpower,it is a contradiction in terms,
forit meansnecessarily a majorwar. Of thisself-defeating contradic-
tionMr. Baldwinwas as unawarein the'thirties as Mr. Trumanseems
to be in 1952.Mr. Churchill put Mr. Baldwin's dilemma in thesecogent
terms:"First,the PrimeMinisterhad declaredthat sanctionsmeant
war;secondly, he was resolvedthattheremustbe no war;and thirdly,
he decideduponsanctions.It was evidently impossible to complywith
thesethreeconditions."SimilarlyMr. Trumanhad declaredthat the
effective'prosecution of'the Korean War meantthe possibilityof a
thirdworldwar; he resolvedthat theremustbe no thirdworldwar;
and he decideduponintervention in the KoreanWar. Here,too, it is
impossible to complywiththesethreeconditions.
Similarcontradictions areinherent in theproposalswhichwouldsub-
stituteforthecurrent policyofcontainment oneoftheliberation ofthe
nationspresently the captivesofRussianCommunism. This objective
can be compatiblewiththeutopianor realistposition,but thepolicies
designedto secureitwillbe fundamentally differentaccording to wheth-
er theyare based upon one or theotherposition.The clearestcase to
17 The differencein these two attitudes is well illustrated by the following passage from
a recent Moon Mullins cartoon. An elderly representative of the utopian school asks little
Kayo:- "Remember the golden rule. Now, supposing that boy slapped you on the right
cheek, what would you do?" Whereupon Kayo replies realistically: "Jest how big a boy
are you supposin'?"

date for the utopian justificationof such policies has been made by
RepresentativeCharles J. Kersten of Wisconsinwho pointed to these
four"basic defects" of the "negative policy of containmentand nego-
tiated coexistence
It would be immoraland unchristianto negotiatea permanentagreement
withforceswhichby everyreligiouscreed and moralpreceptare evil. It aban-
dons nearlyone-halfofhumanityand the once freenationsof Poland, Czecho-
slovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia
and China to enslavementof the Communistpolice state.
It is un-Americanbecause it violates the principleof the AmericanDeclara-
tion of Independence,whichproclaimsthe-rightsof all people to freedomand
theirrightand duty to throwofftyranny.
It will lead to all-out World War III because it aligns all the forcesof the
non-Communistworld in militaryoppositionto and against all the forcesof
the Communist world, including the 800,000,000 peoples behind the Iron
Curtain.
The policy of mere containmentis uneconomic and will lead to national
bankruptcy.18
This statementis interestingforits straightforwardness and because

it combinesin a rathertypical fashionconsiderationsof abstract mo-
rality and of expediency. The captive nations must be liberated not
only because their captivityis immoral,unchristian,and un-American,
but also because its continuationwill lead to a thirdworldwar and to
national bankruptcy.To what extent,however,these considerationsof
expediencyare invalidated by theirutopian settingwill become obvi-
ous froma comparisonbetweenthe utopian and the realistpositions.
From the utopian point of view there can be no difference between
the liberationof Esthonia or Czechoslovakia, of Poland or China; the
captivityof any nation,large or small,close or faraway, is a moral out-
rage which cannot be tolerated. The realist,too, seeks the liberation
ofall captivenationsbecause he realizesthatthe presenceofthe Russian
armies in the heart of Europe and theircooperationwith the Chinese
armiesconstitutethe two main sourcesofthe imbalanceofpowerwhich
threatensour security.-Yetbeforehe formulatesa programof libera-
tion,he will seek answersto a numberof questionssuch as these: While
the United States has a generalinterestin the liberationof all captive
nations,what is the hierarchyofinterestsit has in the liberation,say, of
China, Esthonia, and Hungary?And whilethe Soviet Union has a gen-
eral interestin keeping all captive nations in that state, what is the
hierarchyof its interestsin keeping,say, Poland, Eastern Germany,
and Bulgaria captive? If we assume,as we muston the historicevidence
18 New York Times, August 14, 1952, p. 1.

of two centuries,that Russia would nevergive up controlover Poland

withoutbeing compelled by forceof arms, would the objective of the
liberation of Poland justify the ruin of westerncivilization,that of
Poland included,whichwould be the certainresultofa thirdworldwar?
What resourcesdoes theUnited States have at its disposal forthe libera-
tion of all captive nations or some of them? What resourcesdoes the
Soviet Union have at its disposalto keep in captivityall captive nations
or some of them?Are we more likelyto avoid national bankruptcyby
embarkingupon a policyof indiscriminateliberationwith the concomi-
tant certaintyof war or by continuingthe presentpolicy of contain-
ment?
It mightbe that in a particularinstancethe policiessuggestedby the
answersto these questions will coincidewith RepresentativeKersten's
proposals,but therecan be no doubt that in its overall character,sub-
stance,emphasis,and likelyconsequencesa utopian policyof liberation
differsfundamentallyfroma realist one.
The issue between liberationas a utopian principleof abstract mo-
ralityvs. the realist evaluation of the consequenceswhich a policy of
liberationwould have forthe survivalof the nation has arisenbeforein
Americanhistory.Abraham Lincoln was faced with a dilemma similar
to that whichconfrontsus today. Should he make the liberationof the
slaves the ultimatestandardof his policy even at the risk of destroying
the Union,as manyurgedhimto do, or shouldhe subordinatethe moral
principleofuniversalfreedomto considerationsof the nationalinterest?
The answer Lincoln gave to Horace Greeley, a spokesman for the
utopianmoralists,is timelessin its eloquentwisdom."If therebe those,"
he wroteon August22, 1862,
whowouldnotsave theUnionunlesstheycouldat thesametimesave slavery,
I do notagreewiththem.Iftherebe thosewhowouldnotsavetheUnionunless
theycould at the same timedestroyslavery,I do not agreewiththem.My
paramount objectinthisstruggleis to save theUnion,and is noteitherto save
or to destroyslavery.If I couldsave the Unionwithoutfreeing anyslave I
woulddo it,and ifI couldsave it by freeing all theslaves,I woulddo it; and
ifI couldsave it byfreeingsomeandleavingothersaloneI wouldalso do that.
WhatI do aboutslavery,and thecoloredrace,I do-becauseI believeit helps
to save the Union;and whatI forbear, I forbearbecauseI do notbelieveit
wouldhelpto save theUnion.I shalldo lesswhenever I shallbelievewhatI am
doinghurtsthecause,and I shalldo morewhenever I shallbelievedoingmore
willhelpthecause. I shalltryto correcterrorswhenshownto be errors;and
I shalladoptnewviewsso fastas theyshallappearto be trueviews.
I haveherestatedmypurposeaccording to myviewofofficial duty;and I
intendno modification ofmyoft-expressed personalwishthatall menevery-
wherecouldbe free.

ANOTHER 'tGREAT DEBATE": THE NATIONAL INTEREST OF THE U. S. 983
IV
The foregoingdiscussionoughtto shed additionallight,if this is still
needed,upon the moralmeritsofthe utopian and realistpositions.This
question, more than any other,seems to have agitated the critics of
realismin internationalaffairs.Disregardingthe voluminousevidence,
some ofthemhave picked a fewwordsout oftheircontextto provethat
realismin internationalaffairsis unprincipledand contemptuousof mo-
rality.To mentionbut one example,one eminentcriticsummarizesmy
position,whichhe supposes to deny the possibilityof judgingthe con-
duct of states by moral criteria,in these words: "And one spokesman
finds'a profoundand neglectedtruth,'to use his words,in the dictumof
Hobbes that 'there is neithermoralitynor law outside the state.'"9
These are indeed my words,but not all of them. What I actually said
was this:
Thereis a profoundand neglected truthhiddenin Hobbes'sextreme dictum
thatthestatecreatesmoralityas wellas law andthatthereis neithermorality
norlawoutsidethestate.Universalmoralprinciples,suchas justiceorequality,
are capableofguidingpoliticalactiononlyto theextentthattheyhave been
givenconcretecontentand havebeenrelatedtopoliticalsituationsbysociety.20
It mustbe obvious fromthispassage and fromall my other writings
on the subject21 that my positionis the exact oppositefromwhat this
criticmakes it out to be. I have always maintainedthat the actions of
states are subject to universalmoral principlesand I have been careful
to differentiatemy positionin this respectfromthat of Hobbes. Five
points basic to my positionmay need to be emphasizedagain.
The firstpoint is what one mightcall the requirementof cosmic hu-
19 A. H. Feller, "In Defense of International Law and Morality," The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 282, p. 80 (July, 1952).
20 In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Examination of American Foreign
Policy (New York, 1951), p. 34.

21 See, for instance, "The Machiavellian Utopia," Ethics, Vol. 55, pp. 145-147
(Jan.,
1945); "Ethics and Politics," in Approaches to Group Understanding,Sixth Symposium of
the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, edited by Bryson, Finkelstein, and
MacIver (New York, 1947), pp. 319-341; "The Escape from Power in the Western
World," in Conflictsof Power in Modern Culture, Seventh Symposium of the Conference
on Science, Philosophy and Religion, edited by Bryson, Finkelstein, and MacIver, pp.
1-12; ScientificMan vs. Power Politics (Chicago, 1946), Chaps. 7, 8; "Views of Nuremberg:
Further Analysis of the Trial and Its Importance," America, Vol. 76, pp. 266-267 (Dec.7,
1946); "The Twilight of International Morality," Ethics, Vol. 58, pp. 79-99 (Jan., 1948);
"The Political Science of E. H. Carr," World Politics, Vol. 1, pp. 127-134 (Oct., 1948);
Politics Among Nations (New York, 1948), Ch. 14; "National Interest and Moral Prin-
ciples in Foreign Policy: The Primacy of the National Interest," The American Scholar,
Vol. 18, pp. 207-212 (Spring, 1949); "The Pathology of Power," American Perspective,
Vol. 4, pp. 6-10 (Winter, 1950); "The Moral Dilemma in Foreign Policy," in The Year
Book of World Affairs,1961 (London, 1951), pp. 12-36.

militywith regardto the moral evaluation of the actions of states. To

knowthat states are subjectto the morallaw is one thing;to pretendto
knowwhat is morallyrequiredofstates in a particularsituationis quite
another.The human mindtends naturallyto identifythe particularin-
terestsof states, as of individuals,withthe moral purposesof the uni-
verse.The statesmanin the defenseofthe nation'sinterestsmay, and at
times even must, yield to that tendency;the scholar must resistit at
every turn. For the light-heartedassumptionthat what one's own na-
tion aims at and does is morallygood and that those who oppose that
nation's policies are evil is morallyindefensibleand intellectuallyun-
tenable and leads in practiceto that distortionofjudgment,born of the
blindnessof crusadingfrenzy,whichhas been the curse of nationsfrom
the beginningof time.
The second point which obviouslyneeds to be made again concerns
the effectiveness of the restraintswhichmoralityimposesupon the ac-
tionsofstates.
A discussionofinternational morality mustguardagainstthetwoextremes
eitherof overratingthe influence ofethicsuponinternational politicsor else
ofdenying thatstatesmen and diplomatsare movedby anything elsebutcon-
siderationsofmaterialpower.
Ontheonehand,thereis thedualerrorofconfounding themoralruleswhich
peopleactuallyobservewiththosetheypretend to observeas wellas withthose
whichwritersdeclaretheyoughtto observe....
On the otherhand,thereis the misconception, usuallyassociatedwiththe
generaldepreciationand moral condemnation of powerpolitics,discussed
above,thatinternational politicsis so thoroughly evilthatit is no use looking
forethicallimitations ofthe aspirations forpoweron theinternational scene.
Yet,ifwe ask ourselves whatstatesmen and diplomatsare capableofdoingto
furtherthepowerobjectivesoftheirrespective nationsand whattheyactually
do, we realizethattheydo less thantheyprobablycouldand less thanthey
actuallydid in otherperiodsofhistory.They refuseto considercertainends
and to use certainmeans,eitheraltogether or undercertainconditions, not
becausein thelightofexpediency theyappearimpractical or unwise,but be-
causecertainmoralrulesinterpose an absolutebarrier. Moralrulesdo notper-
mitcertainpoliciesto be considered at all fromthepointofviewofexpediency.
Such ethicalinhibitions operatein ourtimeon different levelswithdifferent
effectiveness.
Theirrestraining function is mostobviousand mosteffective in
thesacredness
affirming ofhumanlifeintimesofpeace.22
In connectionwith this passage we have given a numberof historic
examplesshowingthe influenceof moral principlesupon the conduct of
foreignpolicy.An example taken fromcontemporaryhistorywill illus-
22 Morgenthau,PoliticsAmongNations,pp. 174-175.

ANOTHER GREAT DEBATE THE NATIONAL INTEREST OF THE U. S. 985
trate the same point. There can be littledoubt that the Soviet Union
could have achieved the objectivesof its foreignpolicyat the end ofthe
Second World War withoutantagonizingthe nations of the West into
that encirclingcoalition which has been the nightmareof Bolshevist
foreignpolicy since 1917. It could-have mitigatedcunningforits own
sake and the use of forcewith persuasion,conciliation,and a trustde-
rived fromthe awarenessof a partial communityofinterestsand would
therebyhave minimizedthe dangersto itselfand the rest of the world
whichare inherentin the objectivesofits policies.Yet the Soviet Union
was precludedfromrelyingupon thesetraditionalmethodsofdiplomacy
by its generalconceptionofhumannature,politics,and morality.In the
general philosophyof Bolshevismthereis no room forhonest dissent,
the recognitionofthe intrinsicworthofdivergentinterests,and genuine
conciliationbetween such interests.On all levels of social interaction
oppositionmust be destroyedby cunningand violence,since it has no
rightto exist,ratherthan be met halfway in view of its intrinsiclegiti-
macy. This being the general conceptionof the political moralityof
Bolshevism,the foreignpolicyof the Soviet Union is limitedto a much
more narrowchoice of means than the foreignpoliciesof othernations.
The United States, for instance,has been able, in its relationswith
the nations of Latin America,to replace militaryinterventionand dol-
lar diplomacy with the policy of the Good Neighbor. That drastic
changewas made possibleby the generalconceptionofpoliticalmorality
whichhas been prevalentin the United States fromits very inception.
Thd United States is a pluralistsocietywhichpresupposesthe continu-
ing existenceand legitimacyof divergentinterests.These interestsare
locked in a continuingstrugglefor supremacyto be decided by force
only as a last resort,but normallythrougha multitudeof institutional
agencies which are so devised as to allow one or the other interesta
temporaryadvantage but none a permanentsupremacyat the price of
the destructionof the. others. This moralityof pluralism allows the
United States, once it is secure in that minimumof vital intereststo
which we have referredabove, to transferthose principlesof political
moralityto the internationalscene and to deal withdivergentinterests
there with the same methods of genuine compromiseand conciliation
whichare a permanentelementof its domesticpolitical life.
The thirdpoint concernsthe relationsbetweenuniversalmoral prin-
ciplesand politicalaction.I have always maintainedthattheseuniversal
moral principlescannot be applied to the actions of states in theirab-
stractuniversalformulation, but that theymust be, as it were,filtered
throughthe concretecircumstancesof time and place. The individual
may say for himself:"Fiat justitia, pereatmunrdus";the state has no

rightto say so in the name of those who are in its care. Both individual
and state must judge politicalaction by universalmoralprinciples,such
as that of liberty.Yet whilethe individualhas a moralrightto sacrifice
himselfin defenseofsuch a moralprinciple,the state has no moralright
to let its moral disapprobationof the infringement of libertyget in the
way ofsuccessfulpoliticalaction,itselfinspiredby the moralprincipleof
national survival.There can be no politicalmoralitywithoutprudence,
that is, withoutconsiderationofthe politicalconsequencesof seemingly
moral action. Classical and medieval philosophyknew this and so did
Lincoln when he said: "I do the verybest I know how, the verybest I
can, and I mean to keep doingso untilthe end. If the end bringsme out
all right,what is said against me won't amount to anything.If the end
bringsme out wrong,ten angels swearingI was rightwould make no
difference."The issue between utopianismand realism,as it bears on
this point, has been put most succinctlyby Edmund Burke, and what
he has to say in the followingpassage about revolution,that is, civil
war, may well be applied mutatismutandisto all war.
Nothing universalcan be rationallyaffirmedon any moral or any political
subject. Pure metaphysicalabstractiondoes not belong to these matters.The
lines of moralityare not like the ideal lines of mathematics.They are broad
and deep as well as long. They admit ofexceptions;theydemandmodifications.
These exceptionsand modificationsare not made by the process of logic-,but
by the rules of prudence.Prudence is not only the firstin rank of the virtues
politicaland moral,but she is the director,the regulator,the standardofthem
all. Metaphysicscannot live withoutdefinition;but Prudence is cautious how
she defines.Our courtscannot be morefearfulin suffering fictitiouscases to be
broughtbeforethem forelicitingtheir determinationon a point of law than
prudent moralistsare in puttingextremeand hazardous cases of conscience
upon emergenciesnot existing.Withoutattempting,therefore, to define,what
nevercan be defined,the case of a revolutionin government, this,I think,may
be safelyaffirmed-thata sore and pressingevil is to be removed,and that a
good, great in its amount and unequivocal in its nature,must be probable al-
mostto a certainty,beforethe inestimablepriceofour own moralsand the well-
being of a number of our fellow-citizensis paid for a revolution.If ever we
ought to be economistseven to parsimony,it is in the voluntaryproduction
ofevil. Every revolutioncontainsin it somethingofevil.23
23 The Works of The Right Honorable Edmund Burke, 4th ed. (Boston, 1871), Vol. 4, pp.
80-81. Cf. also Burke, "Speech on A Bill for Shortening the Duration of Parliaments,"
May 8, 1780, in Works, Vol. 7, p. 73: "I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see,
fromtheir operation in the cure of the old evil, and in the cure of those new evils which are
inseparable from all remedies, how they balance each other, and what is the total result.
The excellence of mathematics and metaphysics is, to have but one thing before you; but
he forms the best judgement in all moral disquisitions who has the greatest number and
variety of considerations in one view before him, and can take them in with the best pos-
sible consideration of the middle results of all."

ANOTHER iGREAT DEBATE": THE NATIONAL INTEREST O-VTHE V. S. 987
Fourth,the realistrecognizesthat a moral decision,especiallyin the

political sphere,does not implya simple choice betweena moral prin-
ciple and a standard of action whichis morallyirrelevantor even out-
rightimmoral.A moral decisionimpliesalways a choiceamong different
moral principles,one of whichis given precedenceover others.To say
that a political action has no moral purposeis absurd; forpolitical ac-
tion can be definedas an attemptto realize moral values throughthe
medium of politics, that is, power. The relevant moral question con-
cerns the choice among different moral values, and it is at this point
that the realist and the utopian part company again. If an American
statesman must choose between the promotionof universal liberty,
which is a moral good, at the risk of Americansecurityand, hence, of
libertyin the United States, and the promotionof Americansecurity
and of libertyin the United States, whichis anothermoral good, to the
detrimentof the promotionof universalliberty,whichchoice oughthe
to make? The utopian will not face the issue squarelyand will deceive
himselfinto believingthat he can achieve both goods at the same time.
The realistwillchoosethe nationalintereston bothmoraland pragmatic
grounds;forifhe does not take care of the nationalinterestnobodyelse
will,and if he puts Americansecurityand libertyin jeopardy the cause
of libertyeverywherewill be impaired.
Finally, the political realist distinguishesbetween his moral sympa-
thies and the political interestswhich he must defend.He will distin-
guish with Lincoln between his "officialduty" whichis to protectthe
national interestand his "personal wish" whichis to see universalmoral
values realized throughoutthe world.
The issue has been admirably put by Father WilfredParsons of
Catholic Universityin defendingAmbassador Kennan's position:
Mr. Kennan did not say state behavioris not a fitsubject formoraljudgment)
but onlythat it should not sway our realizationof the realitieswithwhichwe
have to deal. Msgr. Koenig continues: "Should we accept power realitiesand
aspirationswithoutfeelingthe obligationofmoraljudgment?"And he appeals to
the presentwriterand other political scientiststo say whetherthis doctrine
agreeswithPope Pius XII's messageson peace.
I am sure that most political scientists,and also Mr. Kennan, would agree
with the Monsignorthat we should not accept those realities"withoutfeeling
the obligationof moral judgment." But there is a difference betweenfeeling
this obligation (and even expressingit) and allowingthis feelingto sway our
actions in concretenegotiationsthat deal with the national or world common
good. We can still feel and yet deal.
To make my meaning clearer,I understoodMr. Kennan to hold that we
went offthe beam with Woodrow Wilson,when we began to make our moral
disapprobationan essentialpartof our foreignrelations,even sometimesat the

expense of our own and the world'scommongood. Logically,such an attitude

would inhibitour dealingwithBritain,France and a host ofcountries.Pius XI,
speaking of Mussolini afterthe Lateran Treaty, said he would deal with the
devil himselfifhe must.Here was moraldisapprobation,but it was not "carried
over into the affairsof states."
This relativeposition,and not the absolute one ofMsgr. Koenig (withwhich
in itselfI agree), is, I think,the issue raised by Mr. Kennan, and it is worth
debating on that basis.24
The contestbetweenutopianismand realismis not tantamountto a
contestbetweenprincipleand expediency,moralityand immorality,al-
thoughsome spokesmenforthe formerwould like to have it that way.
The contestis ratherbetweenone typeofpoliticalmoralityand another
type of political morality,one taking as its standard universal moral
principlesabstractlyformulated,the other weighingthese principles
againstthe moralrequirements'of concretepoliticalaction,theirrelative
merits to be decided by a prudent evaluation of the political conse-
quences to whichtheyare likelyto lead.25
These points are re-emphasizedby the foregoingdiscussion.Which
attitude with regard to collectivesecurityand to the liberationof the
captive nations,the utopian or the realist,is more likely to safeguard
the survivalof the United States in its territorial,
political,and cultural
identityand at the same timeto contributethe mostto the securityand
libertyof othernations?This is the ultimatetest-political and moral-
by whichutopianismand realismmust be judged.
24.America,Vol. 86, p. 700 (March 29, 1952). See also Algernon Cecil, "The Foreign
Office," in The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783-1919 (New York,
1923), Vol. 3, p. 605, concerning Lord Salisbury: "Always, however, the motive of his
policy was to be found in the political interests as opposed to the political sympathies of
Great Britain; and in this way his treatment of Foreign Affairsis at the opposite policy
from that of Palmerston or Gladstone." Cf. also the general remarks in Alexander H.
Leighton, Human Relations in a Changing World (New York, 1949), pp. 155 ff.
25 See, on this point, Shirley R. Letwin, "Rationalism, Principles, and Politics," The
Review of Politics, Vol. 14, pp. 367-393 (July, 1952); L. Susan Stebbing, Ideals and II-
lusions (London, 1941); Vernon H. Holloway, Religious Ethics and the Politics of Power
(New York, 1951); and Dorothy Fosdick, "Ethical Standards and Political Strategies,"
Political Science Quarterly,Vol. 57, pp. 214 ff. (1942).

The "National Interest" and
Contemporary World Politics
«#. Martin Rochester
The conception of national interest revealed in the state papers is
an aggregation of particularities assembled like eggs in a basket.
Markets for agricultural produce were in the national interest;
markets for industrial commodities were in the national interest;
naval bases, territorial acquisitions for commercial support, an
enlarged consular and diplomatic service, an increased navy and
merchant marine, and occasional wars were all in the national
interest. These contentions were not proved; they were asserted as
axioms, apparently regarded as so obvious as to call for no demon-
stration.—Charles A. Beard, The Idea of National Jntereit (1934)
The "national interest" has proven to be a highly resilient con-

cept, not only in terms of its malleability in the hands of foreign
policymakers and various publics but also in terms of its ability to
retain currency among several generations of international relations
scholars despite repeated efforts to discredit it. There have been
several attempts recently to rehabilitate the concept, including one
by the Commission on the Organization of the Government for
the Conduct of Foreign Policy which recognized that repudiation
of the term by academics did not absolve practitioners from their
continuing responsibility to define it.1 However, the problem with
recent attempts on the part of scholars as well as practitioners to
reformulate the "national interest" is that they fail to take into
account adequately the new realities of world politics which have
tended to upset the normal calculus. If the identification of
"national interests" has defied precise analysis in the past, it is an
even more difficult task today.
This article is intended to point up new conceptual problems
surrounding the definition of "national interest," in response to the
"continuing need to sharpen one's analytical tools and reformulate
1
Alexander L. George and Robert O. Keohane, "The Concept of National
Interest: Uses and Limitations," Report of the Commission on the Organization
of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, Appendices, vol. 2.
Also, representative of recent writings on the "national interest" are Joseph
Frankel, National Interest (New York, 1970) and Fred A. Sondermann, "The
Concept of the National Interest," Orbis, 21 (1977), 121-138.
77
78 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
the concept in light of deeper understanding and changing con-

ditions."2 The focus will be on a number of dominant themes that
can be found in discussions of contemporary international relations
and will examine the implications of each for "national interest" j
considerations. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that, while
there may be some truth to the axiom that the more things change f
the more they stay the same and the corollary that the same con- ',
siderations which determined the "national interest" in the past
still apply today, current happenings in world politics represent
something more than a case of dejd. vu. Indeed, they introduce a I
new element of complexity into both the domestic and international i
environment of decision-makers. A concluding note will relate the j
discussion specifically to the present "malaise" in United States ;
foreign policymaking. '
The Concept Revisited

As long as there have been nation-states, men have thought in
terms of "national interests." It remained for Carr and Morgenthau (
and their fellow realists to turn this tendency into a dictum and to [
shape the loose notion of "national interest" into a well-developed i
concept occupying a special place in scholarly discourse among f
international relationists.3 The widespread criticism of the utility |
of this concept that has followed the realists has been based pri- ;
marily upon the argument that, notwithstanding the painstaking I
attempts by realists to elaborate the concept, it has remained highly i
ambiguous both as a guide to action for policymakers seeking to I
make sound decisions and as an explanatory factor for scholars i
seeking to understand international events. Regarding the utility of f
the concept as a policymaking guide, Arnold Wolfers summed up j
the "subjectivity" problem in his thoughtful essay several years ago: I
When political formulas such as "national interest" or "national I

security" gain popularity they need to be scrutinized with particular »
care. They may not mean the same thing to different people. They |
may not have any precise meaning at all. Thus, while appearing f
to offer guidance and a basis for broad consensus, they may be
permitting everyone to label whatever policy he favors with an
attractive and possibly deceptive name.4 i
2
Sondermann, "Concept of National Interest," p. 121.
3
E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis (London, 1939); Hans J. Morgen-
thau, Politics Among Nations (New York, 1949).
4
Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore, 1952), p. 147.
"NATIONAL INTEREST" IN WORLD POLITICS 79
In a more recent writing, James Rosenau summed up the limitations

of the concept as an analytical category:
The reasons for this failure of the concept as an analytic tool are
numerous. One is the ambiguous nature of the nation and the
difficulty of specifying whose interests it encompasses. A second is
the elusiveness of criteria for determining the existence of interests
and for tracing their presence in substantive policies. Still another
confounding factor is the absence of procedures for cumulating
the interests once they have been identified. This is in turn com-
plicated by uncertainty as to whether the national interest has been
fully identified once all the specific interests have been cumulated
or whether there are not other, more generalized, values which
render the national interest greater than the sum of its parts.5
The twofold assumption which appears to be embedded in the

concept of "national interest" is that (1) there exists an objectively
determinable collective interest which all individual members within
a given national society share equally and (2) this collective interest
transcends any interests that a particular subset of those individuals
may share with individuals in other national societies. The tradi-
tional critique of the concept has focused on the first assumption,
in particular the problems that arise once one goes beyond positing
elementary values such as physical survival, freedom, and economic
well-being. The caveat here is that certain definitions of the
"national interest" tend to coincide with the interests of some sub-
national groups more than others (e.g., the argument that a $100-
million B-l bomber benefits an individual on the welfare rolls less
than it benefits, say, a Rockwell International employee). Various
subnational groups, so the critique goes, whether they are located
within the governmental machinery or outside it, recognize the po-
tentially disparate impacts of different definitions of the "national
attempt to have official definitions (i.e., policies)
l are consistent with their particular interests. Thus,
according to this line of reasoning, the concept of "national interest"
and the associated treatment of nation-states as unitary, purposeful,
rational actors responding exclusively to stimuli from the inter-
national environment is a distortion of reality which ignores the
degree of domestic dissent that operates in national societies—
5
James N. Rosenau, The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York,
1971), p. 243.
both democratic and nondemocratic—and that drives foreign policy

at least as much as external forces.6
The latter criticism is somewhat unfair since Morgenthau and
other realists do recognize the role of domestic conflicts of interest
in the formulation of foreign policy. There is a very clear concern
with domestic politics that can be found in realist writings.7 How-
ever, the realists tend to argue that once internal conflict over de-
fining the "national interest" in a particular instance is played out
and some official definition (policy) ultimately emerges, the various
contending subnational actors can generally be counted upon to
coalesce and enable the nation to act in the aggregate, at least to
the extent that they will not push their separate interests beyond
national boundaries and will not form coalitions with subnational
actors in other nations to oppose the established policy.
The analysis presented here addresses the second assumption
articulated above, that is, whatever the differences between various
subnational groups in a national society, those groups have more
interests in common with each other than they do with groups in
other national societies. While the concept of "national interest"
has been traditionally criticized mainly in terms of the weakness of
the first assumption, it is the second assumption that would seem
to bear further examination since it runs squarely up against what
several observers believe to be major new forces in world politics.
The reference is not simply to the confrontation between, or con-
vergence of, the interests of nation-states and of the world com-
munity as a whole—which has, of course, always been a subject of
discussion in debates over the "national interest"—but rather to a
much more complex set of relationships. It is these forces and their
impact on the definition of the "national interest" that we will now
turn to as the central concern addressed in this article.
6
This critique can be found in Graham Allison, Essence of Decision:
Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, 1971); Roger Hilsman, The
Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs (New York 1971);
Morton Halperin and Arnold Kanter, Readings in American Foreign Policy:
A Bureaucratic Perspective (Boston, 1973); and Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic
Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, 1974).
7
See Henry A. Kissinger, American Foreign Policy (New York, 1974), pp.
11-50; Roger Fisher, International Conflict for Beginners (New York, 1969);
and Hans J. Morgenthau, "The American Tradition in Foreign Policy: An
Overview," in Foreign Policy in World Politics, ed. Roy C. Macridis, 4th ed.
(Englewood Cliffs, 1972), pp. 389-412.
From International Politics to World Politics:

Alternative Paradigms
A growing number of observers of world affairs have called

| attention to two seemingly disparate but mutually related trends
which together, it is suggested, represent the "erosion" of the nation-
state and interstate relations as we have known it over the past three
hundred years. These trends are, first, disintegrative tendencies
within existing national units (i.e., increasing demands for greater
regional autonomy, crises of authority, and ineffectiveness of prob-
lem-solving institutions) and, secondly, integrative tendencies
beyond the nation-state level (i.e., increasing interdependencies,
transaction flows across national boundaries, and proliferation of
intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations). While
similar observations about the demise of the nation-state have been
made in the past only to be retracted8—indeed, forecasting the
doom of the nation-state has long been a favorite pastime of inter-
national relationists—nevertheless the current observations cannot
be easily dismissed as shortsighted or Pollyannish.
The latter trends have appeared so striking to some as to cause
a major rethinking and overhauling of the traditional paradigm
(variously labeled "international politics," "state-centric," or "bil-
liard ball") within which phenomena in the field have been con-
ceptualized in the past. Keohane and Nye, Coplin et al., Brown,
Burton et al., Mansbach et al., and Morse are among those who
have criticized the traditional paradigm, arguing that it never has
adequately corresponded to reality and that it is particularly in-
adequate to comprehend contemporary events.9 Although these
8
For example, see John Herz, "The Rise and Demise of the Territorial
State," World Politics, 9 (1957), 473-493 and "The Territorial State Re-
visited," Polity, 1 (1968), 12-34.
9
See Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., eds., Transnational
Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, 1971) and Power and Interdepen-
dence: World Politics in Transition (Boston, 1977); William D. Coplin, John
R. Handelman, Michael K. O'Leary, and John A. Vasquez, "Color It Morgen-
thau: A Data-Based Assessment of Quantitative International Relations
Research" (Paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual
Meeting, New York, March 14-17, 1973); Seyom Brown, New Forces in World
Politics (Washington, 1974) ; J. W. Burton, A.J.R. Groom, C. R. Mitchell, and
A.V.S. DeReuck, The Study of World Society: A London Perspective (Pitts-
burgh, 1974); Richard W. Mansbach, Yale H. Ferguson, and Donald E.
Lampert, The Web of World Politics: Nonstate Actors in the Global System
(Englewood Cliffs, 1976); and Edward L. Morse, Modernization and the
Transformation of International Relations (New York, 1977).
authors do not all share exactly the same viewpoint—Keohane and

Nye along with Brown and Morse are more restrained than the
others in attacking the traditional framework—all do see the need
to consider an alternative framework. In place of, or beside, the
traditional paradigm, another paradigm is suggested (variously
labeled "world politics," "transnational relations," "cobweb," or
"complex interdependence") which takes into account relatively
new, more complex phenomena. It is appropriate here to elaborate
briefly these two paradigms since they have widely different impli-
cations for considerations of "national interest."
The "international politics" ("billiard ball") paradigm, sche-
matically represented in Figure 1, assumes that nation-states, acting
through official representatives (decision-makers, diplomats, soldiers,
etc.), are the only significant actors in world affairs. Neither sub-
national actors (bureaucratic and societal interest groups) nor
transnational actors (intergovernmental and nongovernmental
organizations, including multinational corporations) are treated as
distinct and autonomous actors, the former being subsumed by the
nation-state and the latter considered as extensions of the nation-
state, or, at best, as marginal factors influencing nation-state inter-
actions. The paradigm assumes a hierarchically ordered set of rela-
tionships with demands flowing from bureaucratic and societal
groups to national leaders located in the authoritative decision-
making apparatus who resolve whatever internal conflict exists
and whose actions then become the nation's actions and the source
of interactions between the national unit and other national units.
In other words, this paradigm contains the assumptions surrounding
the concept of "national interest" that were discussed above.
The key assumption of the "world politics" ("cobweb") para-
digm, represented in Figure 2, is that subnational and transnational
actors can be treated as distinct and autonomous actors apart from
FIGURE 1: International Politics (Billiard Ball) Paradigm
NATION A . Intergovernmental _
Organizations
i Subnational Subnational
I (bureaucratic Decision- . Inter- , Decision- (bureaucratic
and societal) ' Makers /Nation > Makers ' "and societal)
I interest groups Politics interest groups
Nongovernmental^.
~~ Organizations
national actors and that there are no neat hierarchically organized

patterns of influence and authority among these three categories of
actors. The world is conceived of as a set of systems interacting
rather than a set of geographically and legally defined entities inter-
acting. In other words, not all stimuli which provide the inputs
for world politics travel through or are emitted from Washington
or Paris or Cairo; instead, some bypass national capitals and travel
by way of places like Poughkeepsie and Peoria. The paradigm
suggests that subnational actors can affect world politics directly—•
and not just indirectly through domestic political processes—by
initiating or serving as targets of interactions with either foreign
governments or subnational groups located in other countries. It
tends to accentuate conflict within national units and cooperation
across national units—allowing for the possibility that transnational
coalitions of interests (either among bureaucrats or private interest
groups in different countries) may be found that are stronger than
international coalitions—although there is nothing in the paradigm
which precludes the kinds of cooperation and conflict patterns
assumed by the "international politics" paradigm. Insofar as this
paradigm raises questions about the integrity of the nation-state,
it challenges the assumptions surrounding the concept of "national
interest."
What are we to make of these two paradigms? Which one
more accurately reflects the current state of world affairs and is
a more useful framework for scholars and, more importantly, policy-
makers to employ in their attempts to understand international
phenomena? As stated above, proponents of the "world politics"
paradigm cite trends which seem to suggest that the nation-state
will never quite be the same again, that it is being weakened from
FIGURE 2: World Politics (Cobweb) Paradigm
Intergovernmental Nongovernmental
Organizations Organizations
NATION B
Subnational interest
•> groups
Decision-Makers
within and from without, and that a new and more complex web
of relationships is forming inside and across national boundaries.
It must be noted that, at the same time, countertrends have been
cited by others which reinforce the traditional paradigm. Let us
examine some of these apparent trends and countertrends in an
effort to assess which of the two paradigms is a better model of
contemporary reality. The author does not propose here to "test"
the paradigms through systematic analysis of empirical data—which
would be a task well beyond the scope of this essay—but rather to
make some "face validity" judgments about their relative merits
based on a survey of present conditions in the international system.
Trends and Countertrends
We can examine present trends and countertrends in terms of

several recurrent themes that can be found in discussions of con-
temporary international relations. These themes, all interrelated,
are (1) the diffusion of power, (2) the shrinking and linking of
the globe, and (3) interdependence and loss of control. The trends
and countertrends will be treated as alternative "cuts" of the same
theme as viewed through "cobweb" and "billiard ball" conceptual
lenses.
(1) Diffusion of power
Perhaps no trend has been more commented upon recently than

the diffusion of power within the international system. However,
depending upon which conceptual lenses one is using to make
observations about the diffusion of power, one can be describing
two different and somewhat inconsistent phenomena. On the one
hand, there are those looking through "cobweb" lenses who view
the diffusion of power in the international system as consisting
primarily in the proliferation of nonstate (subnational and trans-
national ) actors as at least semiautonomous agents capable of shap-
ing events and competing with national actors for influence in world
politics. On the other hand, more conventional-minded observers
looking through "billiard ball" lenses see the diffusion of power in
terms of a shift from bipolarity to multipolarity in which more and
more nation-states have become relevant actors in the international
system.
In the view of the former, national power everywhere is being
undermined and diluted by both ever narrower interpretations of

the "national interest" on the part of some subnational groups and
ever broader interpretations on the part of other societal elements
which have developed cross-national affiliations and identities
through membership in multinational corporations and other organ-
izations transcending national borders. A corollary here is that an
increasing number of problems in the contemporary world are seen
as either generated by nonstate forces or dealt with through non-
state means and that world politics is becoming a series of frag-
mented, discretely defined issue-areas (e.g., air safety) in which
outcomes are determined by a congeries of forces including both
nation-states and other actors (e.g., intergovernmental organizations
such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, nongovern-
mental organizations such as the International Air Transport Asso-
ciation and the International Air Line Pilots Association, and sub-
national interest groups such as the airline lobbies within particular
countries). As recent case studies have suggested, there are few
issues in world politics in which nonstate actors are not relevant.10
Even in the war-peace area, traditionally considered to be the
exclusive domain of nation-states, one cannot ignore the substantial
capacity of subnational actors like the Irish Republican Army and
transnational actors like the Palestine Liberation Organization to
generate violence in the international system.
If one focuses on the "law of the sea," for example, one can
hardly reduce the intricacies of the debate to simply a conflict
between those states which seek exclusive claims to the oceans and
those which seek inclusive claims. Although the debate is commonly
couched in terms of a confrontation between the interests of de-
veloped states and the interests of developing states,11 this loses
sight of significant conflicts which exist within those states and
between transnational groups. One can point to conflicts between
10
See Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in
Transition; Lawrence Juda, Ocean Space Rights: Developing U.S. Policy
(New York, 1975); Young W. Kihl, Conflict Issues and International Civil
Aviation Decisions: Three Cases (Denver, 1971); John R. Handelman, Howard
B. Shapiro, and John A. Vasquez, Introductory Case Studies for International
Relations (Chicago, 1974); and Jonathan Aronson, "Multiple Actors in the
Transformation of the International Monetary System" (Paper presented at
the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, February 25,
1976).
11
See, for example, Robert L. Friedheim, "The 'Satisfied' and 'Dissatisfied'
States Negotiate International Law," World Politics, 18 (1965), 20-41.
8& T H E REVIEW OF POLITICS
those subnational groups in a given country which for different

reasons favor inclusive claims that would permit maximum freedom
of the seas (bureaucratic groups such as the Department of Defense
a n d societal interest groups such as scientific research organizations)
and those subnational groups in the same country which, also for
different reasons, favor exclusive claims expanding national juris-
diction over and protection of coastal resources (bureaucratic groups
such as the Department of Interior and societal groups as fishing
and oil interests more concerned with exploiting resources off their
own coast than off the coast of other states). This constellation of
interests tends to encourage transnational coalitions, such as scien-
tists in different countries articulating shared issue positions through
nongovernmental organizations. It follows that there are disagree-
ments between various transnational actors as well—nongovern-
mental organizations such as the multinational oil corporations and
intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations—over
the extent of inclusive and exclusive claims.
At the same time, one might argue from a "billiard ball" per-
spective that, in the end, it is states which make claims on the
oceans and not subnational or transnational actors, and that—not-
withstanding the costs involved for governments in their confron-
tations with nonstate actors—national power can be expected to
prevail in this issue-area and all other issue-areas where it is pitted
directly against either subnational forces (as in the case of the
several states along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States which
futilely claimed ownership of offshore oil resources adjacent to their
coasts) or transnational forces (as in the case of a multinational
company that was heavily fined for causing the Santa Barbara
oil spill in 1967). This returns us to the earlier observation of con-
ventional-minded students of international politics that, to the
extent that there has been a diffusion of power in the international
system, it has consisted in the emergence of an increased number
of states as relevant actors in world politics.
While some conceive of the shift from bipolarity to multipolarity
as being the result of a diffusion of military power among several
states, it seems more reasonable to attribute it to a diminished
significance of military power and the concomitant substitution of
other modes of exercising influence. As a number of scholars have
noted, the prohibitive costs of occupying foreign territory and the
fear of conflicts escalating into nuclear holocausts have conspired
to alter the traditional means of pursuing foreign policy goals

as well as the goals themselves.12 As the possible instruments for
exercising (and resisting) influence have become more varied, more
states have found themselves in possession of resources which en-
able them to play key roles in different situations. And as territorial
aggrandizement has declined in importance as an objective of for-
eign policy, the central concern of national security has taken on
new added dimensions and has become in effect several issue-areas.
This changing distribution of power and the array of issues in inter-
national politics has been accompanied by increased flexibility of
alignments.
In this latter context, different areas such as "law of the sea"
problems are characterized by different coalitions of states (as
opposed to subnational and transnational actors), with the power
of a given state varying from issue to issue and considerable cross-
issue bargaining occurring. This is essentially a "polyarchical"
system13 in which no pecking order can be identified insofar as
power is issue-specific and no actor has a capacity to dominate over
more than a narrow range of issues. According to this view of
things, if international politics no longer simply revolves around a
single issue-area, it nonetheless remains basically a contest between
nation-states. It could even be argued that the diffusion of power
among states has had the effect of increasing cohesion within na-
tional societies to which power has gravitated insofar as it has
produced a sense of national pride and purpose where there perhaps
was little or none previously.
(2) Shrinking and linking of the globe
Another trend which has attracted great attention is what can
be called the "shrinking and linking" phenomenon. According to
one popular line of analysis, modern transportation and communi-
cation technology has facilitated increased flow of people, goods,
and ideas across national boundaries, with the result that the world
has become smaller in terms of both physical distances and social
12
For the best statement of this view see Klaus Knorr, On the Uses of Force
in the Nuclear Age (Princeton, 1966) and The Power of Nations (New York,
1975).
13
The concept of "polyarchy" is discussed in Robert A. Dahl, Who
Governs: Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven, 1961)
and James N. Rosenau, "Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy," in
Approaches to Comparative and International Politics, ed. R. Barry Farrell
(Evanston, 1966), pp. 29-92.
distances. Persons residing in nation-states located in one corner of

the globe are becoming increasingly sensitive to and affected by
what goes on inside of and between nations situated in other corners
of the globe. "Cultural diffusion" is seen as occurring at an even
faster rate than "power diffusion" as a homogenization process is
producing a world society of universally shared values and tastes.
Translated into political terms, this "shrinking and linking"
phenomenon is associated with notions of "permeability" and
"penetration" or, to use James Rosenau's phrase, "linkage
politics."14 That is, nation-states are being stripped of their hard
outer shells and are becoming increasingly vulnerable to external
influences which do not follow the normal paths of internation
interaction. What is referred to here is not merely foreign govern-
mental intervention in the political affairs of a state—a common
enough occurrence in the past—but rather a more subtle and per-
vasive enmeshment of external elements in the entire national life
of a society. As the boundaries between national political systems
and their international environments continue to deteriorate, dis-
tinctions between foreign and domestic policy become further
blurred.
When it is even difficult to tell foreign actors from domestic
actors, the "national interest" becomes especially problematic to
define. For example, do persons employed by a French subsidiary
of a United States-based multinational corporation represent a for-
eign element or a domestic element? This becomes something more
than an academic question when the MNC's home government
attempts to extend laws directed at its own national commercial
establishment to subsidiary companies located abroad, as in the
case of the United States government a few years ago expecting
subsidiaries of American corporations in Western European coun-
tries to observe the same export restrictions that Congress had im-
posed on domestic firms through the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Such concerns are particularly relevant to a country like Canada,
where the fact that over 50 percent of all manufacturing and ex-
tractive industries are foreign-controlled makes one wonder what
the domestic-foreign distinction means in the Canadian setting.
To the extent that the distinction between domestic policy and
14
James N. Rosenau, ed., Linkage Politics (New York, 1969). The in-
creased interconnectedness of national societies is delineated in Alex Inkeles,
"The Emerging Social Structure of the World," World Politics, 27 (1975),
467-459.
foreign policy can be maintained, the Canadian experience puts

into sharp focus the tensions that can develop between the two and
the frequent difficulties in sorting out and reconciling the various
elements of the "national interest" that are to be served. In partic-
ular, national decision-makers seem to be faced increasingly with
agonizing choices involving trade-offs between national economic
welfare and the maintenance of a free and unencumbered hand in
pursuing foreign policy. The recent issue of whether to permit the
Iranian government to bail out Pan American Airways from its
financial problems by purchasing a major interest in the company
is only one of several similar issues confronting decision-makers.
Failure to allow foreign investment in United States companies
threatens both to deprive the national economy of a vital infusion
of capital and to produce harmful repercussions for American com-
mercial ventures abroad that will have to operate under the shadow
of a "double standard." While decision-makers have always had
these kinds of trade-offs to consider, and while "internal" needs
have often had to be sacrificed for "external" requirements (such
as the production of guns in place of butter or constraints on free
speech in time of war), these situations of choice seem to occur
more regularly of late and seem to be more complicated than pre-
viously.
Counterbalancing these trends is what would appear to be a
backlash effect produced by the "shrinking and linking" process,
that is, a tendency toward national introspection and a renewed
preoccupation with the national self on the part of many societies.
Although in the case of the United States, the current isolationist
impulse may be considered simply a "return to normalcy" follow-
ing the Vietnam debacle, it seems to be a much larger phenomenon
having deeper roots. One can see states everywhere responding to
the "permeability" problem by attempting to resurrect to least
partially their hard outer shells through higher tariff walls, immi-
gration quotas, and other barriers. In this regard, one might note
the observation made by Karl Deutsch and others that national
introversion (roughly defined as the ratio of intranational to trans-
national flows of communications, goods and people) tends to in-
crease as societies industrialize.15
19
See Karl W. Deutsch and Alexander Eckstein, "National Industrialization
and the Declining Share of the International Economic Sector, 1890-1959,"
World Politics, 13 (1961), 267-229.
The fact is that "shrinking and linking" is not a uniform pheno-

menon characterized by tidy symmetry. Some societies are more
penetrated than others. Some transaction flow is at unprecedented
levels while others (notably population migration and foreign trade
as a percentage of GNP) still do not approach their pre-World
War I volume.16 Where growth in transnational flow has occurred,
it has not been felt evenly throughout the system. There are large
gaps, for example, in the global network of nongovernmental organ-
izations, where developed, pluralistic states are far more represented
than less developed states and communist states.17 There is further
evidence which suggests that "shrinking and linking" is more of a
regional phenomenon than a global phenomenon.18
Indeed, in some respects the world was more shrunken and
linked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than it is today.
For all the "Coca-Colaization" of the world that has taken place,
there has never been greater cultural and ideological diversity than
at present.19 The homogeneity of the contemporary international
system pales by comparison with an earlier system which consisted
essentially of a handful of major actors having shared autocratic
values, European cultural traditions, and family ties. Moreover, if
modern communications and transportation technology has pro-
moted some degree of cultural diffusion and assimilation, it has also
heightened awareness of certain differences between various national
populations in terms of rising consciousness of the "rich-poor gap"
and other disparities.20
(3) Interdependence and loss of control
The "diffusion of power" and "shrinking and linking" themes

are closely related to a third theme, namely "interdependence and
loss of control." One version of the latter theme is the "spaceship
16
Jeffrey Hart, "Graph Theoretical Models of International Politics"
(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1974), chap. 7.
17
Werner J. Feld, Nongovernmental Forces and World Politics (New
York, 1972).
18
Joseph S. Nye, "Regional Institutions," in Regional Politics and World
Order, eds. Richard A. Falk and Saul H. Mendlovitz (San Francisco, 1973),
pp. 78-93.
18
See Adda B. Bozeman, The Future of Law in a Multicultural World
(Princeton, 1971).
20
See Jagdish N. Bhagwati, "Economics and World Order from the 197O's
to the 1990's: The Key Issues," in Economics and World Order from the
1970's to the 1990's, ed. Bhagwati (New York, 1972), pp. 1-28.
earth" notion of a tiny planet of people with interlocking and in-

separable destinies moving aimlessly through time and space. A
more muted expression of the same theme is the view that govern-
ments have become increasingly incapable of managing their na-
tional destinies, of controlling events within their own boundaries,
much less outside them, since the problems they are called upon
to solve—economic inflation, pollution, skyjacking, etc.—spill over
national boundaries and are caused by factors beyond the control
of any single national actor. The paralysis of the central institutions
of states in the face of their inability to cope with these problems
has contributed to what many observers see as widespread crises of
authority within nation-states and surrender of de facto national
sovereignty in the international system.21
Increased interdependence among nations has meant that their
efforts to achieve desired goals for themselves have tended to be-
come "collective goods" problems, problems which require joint
action among various actors who find they cannot singly produce
desired "goods" (or avoid undesired "evils") insofar as their indi-
vidual actions result in benefits and losses that cannot be withheld
from others. There has been a spate of attempts recently to apply
"collective goods" theory, as developed by Mancur Olson,22 to
various international concerns ranging from alliances23 to "law of
the sea" questions24 to more general issues.25
When problems are cast in "collective goods" terms, internation
collaboration seems to become more imperative and urgent than
ever. While coordination of policies may occur informally through
21
Representative of this viewpoint is the writing of Richard A. Falk, This
Endangered Planet (New York, 1971) a n d Lester R. Brown, World Without
Borders ( 1 9 7 2 ) .
22
Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, 1965).
23
M a n c u r Olson and Richard Zeckhauser, "An Economic Theology of
Alliances," in Economic Theories of International Politics, ed. Bruce M . Russett
(Chicago, 1968), pp. 25-49.
24
Edward J. Wenk, The Politics of the Oceans (Seattle, 1972); and Peter
F. Cowhey, Jeffrey A. Hart, and Janet K. Schmidt, " T h e Theory of Collective
Goods and the Future Regime of Ocean Space" (Paper presented at the Inter-
national Studies Association Annual Meeting, New York, March 14-17, 1973).
25
Mancur Olson, "Increasing the Incentives for International Cooperation,"
International Organization, 25 (1971), 866-874; Norman Frolich, Joe A.
Oppenheimer, and Oran R. Young, Political Leadership and Collective Goods
(Princeton, 1971); Bruce M. Russett and and John S. Sullivan, "Collective
Goods and International Organization," International Organization, 25 (1971),
845-865; and John G. Ruggie, "Collective Goods and Future International
Collaboration," American Political Science Review, 66 (1972), 874-893.
ad hoc actions or through formal agreements, the dynamics of

problem-solving tends to elicit institutional responses in the form
of intergovernmental organizations. The dramatic growth of inter-
governmental organizations since World War II clearly suggests
that states have found such arrangements to be important vehicles
for collective problem-solving.26 Where the "shrinking and linking"
phenomenon is thought to be eroding the nation-state at the level
of intersocietal interactions, "interdependence" is thought to be
making a frontal assault at the level of intergovernmental trans-
actions. Carried to its logical conclusion, the "logic of collective
action" suggests to some that all interests everywhere are indivisible
and that the "national interest" is a contradiction in terms.
Juxtaposed to this view of contemporary international politics
is the observation that governments are getting bigger if not
stronger, that they are expanding their functions in society, and
that their creation of intergovernmental organizations demonstrates
the adaptability and resiliency of the nation-state rather than its
erosion.27 There are a few who even argue that interdependence
is a myth that has no basis whatsoever in reality.28 Others, while
not dismissing interdependence as a real phenomenon, have noted
that there is at least contradictory evidence to be found and that
the phenomenon is more complex than commonly conceived.29
Just as in the case of the "shrinking and linking" phenomenon,
one can point to asymmetrical elements. Some states' relationships
are characterized more by dependence than by interdependence,
26
T r e n d d a t a c a n b e found in Charles W. Kegley, J r . a n d J. Martin
Rochester, "Assessing the I m p a c t of T r e n d s on t h e International System: T h e
Growth of Intergovernmental Organizations," in A Multi-Media Introduction
to International Politics, eds. William D . Coplin a n d Kegley (Chicago, 1971),
pp. 401-412.
27
See James N . Rosenau, "Adaptive Politics in an I n t e r d e p e n d e n t World,"
Orbis, 16 ( 1 9 7 2 ) , 153-173.
28
K e n n e t h N . Waltz, " T h e M y t h of National Interdependence," in The
International Corporation: A Symposium, ed. Charles P. Kindleberger ( C a m -
bridge, 1970), p p . 205-223.
29
Edward L. Morse, "The Politics of Interdependence," International
Organization, 23 (1969), 311-327 and "Interdependence in World Affairs,"
in World Politics: An Introduction, eds. James N. Rosenau, Kenneth W.
Thompson, and Gavin Boyd (New York, 1976), pp. 660-681; Richard N.
Rosecrance and Arthur Stein, "Interdependence: Myth or Reality?" World
Politics, 26 (1973), 1-27; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Independence and Interdepen-
dence," Foreign Policy, 22 (1976), 130-161; and Peter J. Katzenstein, "Inter-
national Interdependence: Some Long-Term Trends and Recent Changes,"
International Organization, 29 (1975), 1021-1934.
while some states may be essentially independent vis-a-vis other

states. Some states—either dyadically, triadically, or in some other
combination—may be interdependent strategically but not econom-
ically. Even on a specific dimension, such as economic interdepen-
dence, it may be necessary to distinguish between aid dependence,
trade dependence, currency dependence and other subdimensions.
If one looks carefully at "collective goods" theory, it appears to
be only a slight variation of "mixed motive" game theory. The
latter suggests that as international politics has moved away from
"zero-sum" game conditions to "non-zero sum" conditions, most
situations encountered by national actors have come to involve
elements of both cooperation (insofar as gains can be had by all
"players" through proper coordination of strategy) and competition
(insofar as, while there is something to be gained by everybody, not
all players need share equally in the payoffs). In this sense, while
the cooperative dynamic may be greater than ever before, there are
still some elements of "international politics as usual" present in the
international system.
Conclusion
Returning to the question raised earlier—what are we to make

of the two paradigms?—the previous discussion of trends and
countertrends would not appear to be especially helpful in resolving
the issue in favor of one or the other. While one might argue that
a hard empirical analysis of trend data would prove more decisive,
there is reason to believe that the conclusions reached would be just
as equivocal in the absence of better theory about relationships
between nonstate and state actors than we now have. This is evi-
dent from the only major data-based assessment of the two para-
digms to date,30 which is admirable as a seminal effort but which
hardly provides any definitive answers. For every analyst whose
data confirm that the nation-state remains the most powerful actor
in the international system and that multinational corporations and
other transnational actors are mere extensions,31 there is another
30
Mansbach et al., The Web of World Politics: Nonstate Actors in the
Global System.
31
Kenneth Simmonds, "Ethnocentric a n d Geocentric Multinational Cor-
porations," in World Business: Promise and Problems, ed. C . C . Brown (New
York, 1970).
whose data indicate otherwise.32 With little good theory to go on,

we are left essentially with random facts. What if Standard Oil of
New Jersey does have three times as many employees stationed
overseas as the U.S. Department of State, and if its tanker fleet is
almost half that of the Soviet Union? Does this really tell us any-
thing about international relations?
What is needed is more theory development tied to empirical
research. We have suggested three theme-areas in which the para-
digms seem to be competing and in which further systematic analysis
might be pursued. We have also tried to show that, at least based
on a "face validity" kind of exercise, convincing arguments can be
marshaled on behalf of both paradigms. Insofar as a conclusion
can be drawn from this analysis, it would appear that neither para-
digm by itself quite captures contemporary reality, that each is
a caricature of sorts, and that the world is in flux somewhere
between a pure "state-centric" system and a full-blown "world
politics" system. If the analysis has seemed somewhat "schizo-
phrenic," that's the way the world seems to be. How else can one
view many of the recent events that have taken place, such as the
arrangement whereby the United States Department of Defense
contracted with an American multinational corporation (in which
Saudi Arabian interests were to purchase 25 percent ownership)
to engage former United States servicemen in training Saudi troops
to protect oil wells which at the time were considered potential
targets of American military action?
If one is willing to look beyond the most visible manifestations
of "state-centrism" such as Vietnam, one can discern two different
"cultures" superimposed on each other. In addition to the tradi-
tional culture of diplomacy, strategic bargaining, alliances and
arms races, there is beneath the surface another culture with differ-
ent trappings represented by the Vinnell Corporation episode re-
ferred to above. For every Vietnam, there is at least one Vinnell.
This can be a tremendous source of confusion to policymakers and
publics trying to get a handle on the world, and it is reflected in
the desultory national debate over the future direction of American
foreign policy. It accounts for why it is sometimes hard to tell
the isolationists from the internationalists in this debate. While the
"national interest" remains the lone lodestone anchoring the debate,
it is more difficult than ever to decipher in a world which is rent
32
Brown, World Without Borders.
in half not only by East-West and North-South conflicts but by

more complex tensions.
We would maintain that the previous discussion of paradigms
is not merely an academic exercise but has important implications
for the manner in which foreign policy is formulated, that is, how
the "national interest" is defined. In the words of two writers who
have occupied positions in both academia and government: "Prag-
matic policymakers may think that they need pay no more heed
to theoretical disputes over the nature of world politics than they
pay to medieval scholastic disputes over how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. Academic pens, however, leave marks
in the minds of statesmen with profound results for policy."33
One can, indeed, see the conflict between different images of
the world being played out not only in scholarly circles but also in
the policymaking arena. The Carter administration's controversial
foreign policy innovations can be viewed as a partial attempt to
reconcile "billiard ball" and "cobweb" images, moving away some-
what from the first paradigm—which has tended in the past thirty
years to make the Soviet Union our main reference point and bal-
ance of power, "containment" politics the dominant concern of
our foreign policy—toward the second paradigm—which suggests
many more sets of reference points and issues. This intention to
reshape American foreign policy in response to changing conditions
in world politics was clearly stated in the president's "landmark"
speech at Notre Dame University on May 22, 1977:
A rapidly changing world . . . requires U.S. foreign policy to

be based on a wider framework of international cooperation. Our
policy during the (postwar) period was guided by two principles:
a belief that Soviet expansion must be contained, and the corre-
sponding belief in the importance of an almost exclusive alliance
among non-Communist nations on both sides of the Atlantic. . . .
That system could not last forever unchanged.
While this speech might have represented a radical departure

from the past, the author would argue that it did not go far enough
in articulating the new elements of contemporary world politics
and in offering prescriptions for dealing with these complexities.
33
Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Tran-
sition, p. 4.
The author wishes to acknowledge the research support of the Center for
International Studies of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
96 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS ,
E
I
All of the five "cardinal premises" upon which Carter argued a new i
American foreign policy should rest had a familiar ring to them, '
particularly the need to "encourage all countries to rise above 1
narrow national interests [italics added] and work together to solve |
such formidable global problems as the threat of nuclear war, racial |
hatred, the arms race, environmental damage, hunger, and disease." -
It is perhaps not surprising that the president has encountered much r
puzzlement and resistance in his attempt to recast foreign policy i
since his own "state-centric" rhetoric tends to reinforce traditional t
views of the world. If he is to succeed in reorienting United States »
foreign policy, he will have to do a better job than he has thus far '
of educating the American people to the "brave new world" and |
the nature of American "interests" in it. f
i

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Another "Great Debate": The National Interest of the United States

Author(s): Hans J. Morgenthau

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ANOTHER "GREAT DEBATE": THE NATIONAL INTEREST

This content downloaded from 141.241.43.86 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 07:26:09 AM

principles,can be achieved hereand now. It assumes the essentialgood-

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In orderto refutea theorywhichpretendsto be scientific,it is first

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This content downloaded from 141.241.43.86 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 07:26:09 AM

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possible meaningsof history.In other words,we put ourselvesin the

9 Tannenbaum,p. 177. 10Ibid.

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as are alreadythesefourpoliticalentities,it is assumedthat the freedom,

Topics (New York, 1931), p. 351.

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and thereis, on the otherhand, no opportunityforthe othermembers

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selvesupon the Americanmindis the emergence of the UnitedStates

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in the AtlanticSecurityPact, we are told,has nothingto do withthe

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theirinterestsare at stake-so cruel,so faithless,so cunning.We know

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The concept of the national interestis similarin two respectsto the

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eithercome into being throughconquest or else throughconsentbased

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terests exert, of course, constant pressureupon the conduct of our

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tionalinterestof the United States. Frequently,thisrationalizationhas

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bodies. The identitybetweenthe interestsofthe UnitedNations and the

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kind. No nation has the resourcesto promoteall desirable objectives

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The concept of the national interestpresupposesneithera naturally

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Any numberof examplescould illustratethe real yet subtle practical

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curitytheutopianhad to be indifferent to thepossibilityofChineseand

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This statementis interestingforits straightforwardness and because

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of two centuries,that Russia would nevergive up controlover Poland

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Policy (New York, 1951), p. 34.

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militywith regardto the moral evaluation of the actions of states. To

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Fourth,the realistrecognizesthat a moral decision,especiallyin the

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expense of our own and the world'scommongood. Logically,such an attitude

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The "national interest" has proven to be a highly resilient con-

the concept in light of deeper understanding and changing con-