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The Theory Of War And Peace Essay

Decent Essays

This week’s readings mainly challenge neorealists’ prescriptions about war and peace. While the systemic theory presented by Waltz (1979) sees international structure as the main source of war and equal distribution of power between two actors (bipolarity) as the main guarantee of peace, Bremer (1992) and Reed (2000) emphasize the role of domestic factors on the emergence of conflict, and Wohlforth (1999) claims that unipolarity not bipolarity will stabilize the international system. Thompson (2006), in contrast to Wohlforth, presents completely opposite arguments about the unipolarity of current system and makes different prediction related to its possible period of persistency. According to the subjects of debates this paper consists of two parts where besides findings and arguments of each article, I focus on the possible counterarguments that might be given as a response by realists. Systemic factors vs. domestic factors The first debate area is covered in articles by Stuart A. Bremer and William Reed. Particularly, Bremer claims that assumptions of idealism about pacifying effects of collective security alliances; democratization, economic development and reduced level of weaponry are more accurate than realism’s tenets. In contrary to Waltz’s (1988, 627) argument that “wars, hot and cold, originate in the structure of the international political system”, Reed contributes to this debate by further emphasizing the effects of domestic factors on the conflict onset and

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