POL208Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Defensive Wall, Mechanical Equilibrium, Preventive War
Document Summary
Survival: self-help; self-interest; constant potential for violence; life is. Very limited potential for cooperation unstable equilibrium fear of defection. No leviathan = no room for moral considerations. Survival and self interest are moral under anarchy. These implications are a bleak understanding of international relations. The only ethical thing to do in this system is to survive. The government has one responsibility: to ensure the survival of its citizens. Wwi in the trenches looks pretty organized from above. The politics of reality politics based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations. It doesn"t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice (deng. T1: constant fear and insecurity; because any state may at anytime use force, all states must constantly be ready either to counter force with force or to pay the cost of weakness. T2: actor a: seeks to increase her security by buying weapons/ building a defensive wall/ gaining allies.
