Preview

Empire, Great Power Hegemony, Balance of Power, Concert of Power

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3180 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Empire, Great Power Hegemony, Balance of Power, Concert of Power
Introduction
The traditional political definition of peace was originated among the ancient Romans who defined that peace, “pax” as “absentia belli”, the absence of war.
Peace is a state of harmony, the absence of hostility. This term is applied to describe a cessation of violent international conflict. In this case, peace is the opposite of war.
Though human-beings are prone to seek peace, prosperity and civilization for their lives, means used to seek them were at times conducted through the contrast process: war.
The origin of war War was influenced by the pessimistic side of human nature. Machiavelli stated in his book “The Prince” that “....to maintain the state the prince is often obliged to act against his promise, against charity, against humanity and against religion. He should not stray from the good, but he should know how to enter into evil when necessity commands.” Morgenthau has shown his facet by “Animus Dominandi” or the human “lust” for power (Morgenthau 1965:192). Men and women are by nature political animals: they are born to pursue power and to enjoy the fruits of power.” “The craving for power dictates a search of relative advantages and secure political spaces.”
Regarding to Thomas Hobbes, “the state of nature”, he quoted: “…without a state to guarantee the means and conditions of security and to promote welfare, human’s life is bound to be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Insecurity and uncertainty bring about fear of each other in people’s minds and the way to escape is to create and maintain a sovereign state.
The fact that each nation-state is motivated by national interest with a high regard for the normative coreand also from Hobbes’ view, these are the reasons why a state needs to seek for protection of its territory, its population, and other valued ways of life which would be concerned as the national interest to further finalize to foreign policies or even worse, to generate a war.
Donald Kagan has

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    According to Hobbes, government is needed so that society will not collapse into violence due to humanity’s selfish desires and self-interest. Hobbes believes that humanity’s natural state is motivated by self-interest and will do everything they can to succeed in their endeavors. People will do whatever it takes to fulfill what their idea of ‘good ’is. When everyone acts this way it quickly devolves into chaos, war, and violence.…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Question 1: In his book, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes provided a very radical, innovative, and contradictory answer to what he believed to be the origin and purpose of the state. He argues that the State exists because of a social contract with its people. The passage reads, “hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.” As mentioned in this statement, the social contract rests on the belief that the natural state of men is war and that they are inherently selfish and violent. As a result of this violent state in the nature of people, Hobbes explained that a State that possessed absolute authority is essential in order to help the people of the state protect themselves from each other.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    During the seventeenth century, Great Britain produced Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two of the greatest political philosophers of all times. Both men are known for their great philosophical ideas that help to explain the role of government in man’s life. Their explanations are based on the description of their understanding of man’s state of nature. While both men do have opposite views on many of their political arguments, the fact that they are able to structure the essence of their conflicting ideologies in to the shell of what they define as the state of man in nature, is the link that relates them to each other. Both man share there desire in an establishment that provides order to ensure not only the protection of the individual, but also the security of the state.…

    • 1685 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    As with most philosophers seeking to legitimatize their political conjectures, Hobbes developed his theory of the state of pre-political people. He hypothesized that all people are very individualistic, alone and solely self interested. With this, they are in a constant state of war; not necessarily fighting, but living with “the Will to contend in the nature of Warre; as is known in the nature of Weather” (Hobbes 133). Without safety or security, advancement of the Human Race is impossible, because if one’s focus is solely on survival, there is not time for culture, progress of the arts, record keeping or even social developments. This type of society is not acceptable, because even though all people are only looking out for themselves, they are not totally irrational should be willing to enter into some type of agreement to guarantee their protection.…

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In his philosophy Hobbes argues that in a state of nature, a state existing without government, man will be inherently evil. In a state of nature, Hobbes famously argues, the lives of men are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Therefore, in order to protect their fundamental rights, citizens will enter into a social contract in order to guarantee their security and thus forming the state. Hobbes argues that the only entity that would be capable of maintaining such a fragile peace would be a sovereign with absolute power. Hobbes maintains that in order for the social contract to remain intact and for society to maintain some semblance of peace and order, the sovereign must have absolute power.…

    • 1432 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hobbes and Locke

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Hobbes’ theory of a natural state, people live with no sense of government or law, forcing society into chaos and a war where “every man [is] against every man” (Hobbes 1651:3). Without the constraints of an institution, people begin to reveal their most unpleasant virtues. The three “principal causes of quarrel” include competition, diffidence and glory (Hobbes 1651:2). In order to control these causes, Hobbes proposes a sovereign with the ability to preside over all. He proposes a Leviathan with which the people can create a social contract and increase their probability of self-preservation. In return for its protection, the Leviathan assumes the power over all through violence, resulting in contracts of fear. Ensuing from the contract with the Leviathan, society understands that “a kingdom divided in itself cannot stand” (Hobbes 1651:7). Similar to the covenant between Rome and the Romans, however, if their sovereign fails to uphold its conditions of safety and security, the commonwealth can justify his disposal. In summary, Hobbes’ believes that a successful society is one that prevents people from experiencing complete freedom, simply because they cannot handle this privilege.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wwii

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages

    War is an ugly event that man has created over time. Darwin once said, “History is a battle of nations and races against one another for their domination. It is genetics and the belief in a master nation and master race.” War does two things; it helps or it hurts. It honors or it hijacks. Usually however war binds people together if the fight is for right of justice.…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Everlasting peace is a dream, and not even a pleasant one; and war is a necessary part of God’s arrangement of the world.” Count Helmuth von Moltke wrote these words in a letter to Dr. J.K. Bluntschli in December of 1880. Von Moltke’s words, spoken from his experience in the Franco-Prussian War, portray an unusual philosophy. Instead of debating on the ethics of war, he speaks of its continuity and necessity to man. His reasoning has inspired an uncommon belief that it is not whether war is right or wrong that holds importance, but its inevitability. War is a perpetual and endless occurrence of strength, dominance, and destruction that is motivated by the debated morality of violence, the destructive instinct of man, and the inevitable acceptance of war. Despite the vast difference in culture and time of the ancient Greeks and that of today’s society, scholars have found that the views of war are still quite similar on both sides, and such is an issue both societies must contend with in order to survive . The Iliad, an epic by Homer that describes the war between the ancient cultures of Greece and the city of Troy, is one such document that helps to provide this insight.…

    • 1057 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Social Contract Theories

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Thomas Hobbes thought that people have rights to self-preservation; they also have rights to defend themselves against the threat of losing what they desired in order to survive, which is a general rule, called the “Law of Nature”. In the state of nature, people act guided by their self-interests, and want to attain their rational desires. Therefore, each individual is at risk of losing what he or she has if it is also desired by another. According to Hobbes, in this natural condition, three major reasons could be the causes of fighting between individuals: competition, diffidence and glory (141). Therefore, the “state of nature” would be like the state of war where people are against each other, and life would be “short, nasty and brutish”. To escape from the state of nature requires a social contract to govern relations between individuals, as well as an all-powerful state to enforce the rules.…

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    War and Ethics

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Indeed, there is arguably no human activity more destructive and more detrimental to the global community than the fighting of war. In the context of this discourse I refer to war as a large scale armed conflict between two or more nations or other political entities. While some may argue that war is morally permissible under certain circumstances, it is my opinion that the cost of any war is far too high to justify. Some contend that war is inevitable, a fact of human life, and that to argue against it is futile. However, I maintain that war only seems inevitable because of the current geopolitical climate, and the failure of political states to act as responsible moral agents. Before further introducing the positive points of my argument, I will describe the two most common pro-war ideologies, and consider their flaws.…

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Orend, B. (2006) The Morality of War (London: Broadview Press). Patterson, E. (2008) Just War Thinking: Morality and Pragmatism in the Struggle against Contemporary Threats (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books). Plato (1988) The Republic, trans. A. Bloom (New York: Basic Books). Reichberg, G. (2002) Just War or Perpetual Peace, Journal of Military Ethics, 1(1), pp. 16Á35. Reichberg, G. (2007) Is there a Presumption Against War in Aquinas’s Ethics, in: G. Reichberg & H. Syse (Eds), Ethics, Nationalism and Just War: Medieval and Contemporary Perspectives, pp. 72Á98 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press). Reichberg, G. (2010) Thomas Aquinas on Military Prudence, Journal of Military Ethics, 9(3), pp. XXÁXX. Simpson, G. (2007) War, Peace, and God (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress). Thucydides. (1972) History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. R. Warner (New York: Penguin). United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (1983) The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, accessed 12 January 2010, available at: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/ TheChallengeofPeace.pdf; Internet. Vitoria, F. (1991) Political Writings, eds A. Pagden & J. Lawrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Walzer, M. (2000) Just and Unjust War: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 3rd ed. (New York: Basic Books).…

    • 9951 Words
    • 40 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “There is no such thing as inevitable war. If war comes it will be from failure of human wisdom. Is war embedded in our nature? To be able to answer such complex question one must consider the arguments that may perhaps offer rational value to explain why this assertion is in fact true. “As far as we know war has been a part of human history and civilisation since prehistoric times, so for one to simply assume that a world without war is inevitable is indeed incorrect. This assumption of War is deeply rooted in people’s way of life that when disagreements concerning states or groups in a country end up in a violent conflict they assume that it is almost normal. This assumption rooted in to society’s opinion is considered quite narrow; therefore essential changes are necessary for people to avoid eventual violent and blood shedding wars. To clarify the above statement this essay will focus on war and its definition, causes of war and human nature and war. There are many definitions of war, and regularly the offered definitions conceal a specific political or philosophical position of the author. The Oxford dictionary defines war as “a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country (2013)”. Thus, directing one to believe that war is basically the result of when two or more groups are incapable of reasonable and meaningful communication and also when an individual or a group’s character is mutually hostile or belligerent, consequently promoting war for repressive intentions. If considered in detail war is maybe the greatest irrational concept of humanity. A number of people may claim that war is normal, for the reason that human beings are animals, and as we know animals fight and kill each other frequently. Another well-known definition is Carl von Clausewitz the so called philosopher of war implies that war is “the continuation of policy by other means”, this notion is mutually…

    • 1665 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What Peace Means to Me…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In a country, Peace is a term that most commonly refers to an absence of aggression, violence or hostility. Peace isn’t the absence of violence but rather the presence of justice. In a society, peace happens when different desires are in one agreement. Peace is based on many things, culture, education, family values, experience, & history (to name a few) but the basis is the same----to co-exist without war, killing, & overpowering a fellow being.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The first reason I agree with Jody Williams’s definition is because peace has to be sustainable. In my opinion peace has to be able to maintained or kept going. For example, when I was in high school, my country ,Ethiopia, was preparing for its second election, and the governing party at the time and the opposing party were having disagreements on how the election campaign was going; as a result, riots started to break out in schools, in workplaces, and in marketplaces. Police started using lethal force to stop the riots and disturbances, so the numbers of casualties started to rise. This was the first time I felt no peace and wished for peace to come because riots could start at anytime and anywhere and I could become a victim. Even in my high school, there was a riot that led to students to become injured and arrested by the police. All in all, peace…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Firstly, it is important to provide some sort of outline of what the term peace itself means. During my research I came across the notes of the Irenees’ Peace workshop held in South Africa in May 2007. According to these documents Peace does not mean the total absence of any conflict. It means the absence of violence in all forms and the unfolding of conflict in a constructive way. Peace therefore exists where people are interacting non-violently and are managing their conflict positively – with respectful attention to the legitimate needs and interest of all concerned. In terms of explaining the difference of negative and Positive peace this definition seemed the most appropriate.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays