Man, the State and War

Why do wars keep happening, even when everyone insists they want peace? Kenneth Waltz’s Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis tackles this haunting question by rethinking how we explain the cause of war. Waltz argues that before we can handle war—or even hope to prevent it—we must understand its underlying forces. And understanding demands that we decide where to look: within man himself, within the internal structure of states, or within the anarchic relations between them. These three levels of analysis—or “images,” as Waltz calls them—shape every debate about why nations fight.

At its heart, Waltz’s book is a search for clarity. He exposes why theories drawn from psychology, domestic politics, and international relations each seem compelling yet fail to grasp the whole truth. You may think wars start because leaders are evil or irrational, but that’s only one piece. You may believe democracy or economic reform can bring peace, but that’s another fragment. Waltz contends that war emerges not from a single cause but from the interaction of human nature, political structure, and international anarchy. These aren’t just academic distinctions—they determine how you live under a world order built on fear and survival.

Man and the Psychological Roots of War

The first image locates war in human nature. Following thinkers from Confucius to Saint Augustine and Reinhold Niebuhr, Waltz examines the idea that people fight because they’re selfish, prideful, or irrational. Some optimists—like Longfellow or Bertrand Russell—believe education or moral development can redeem humanity. Pessimists think improvement is impossible and only strong political institutions can manage our flaws. For Waltz, this level explains individual motives but can’t account for why entire societies or systems choose war; human nature hasn’t changed over centuries, yet the frequency and type of wars have.

States and Domestic Structures

The second image turns inward to states. Conflict arises, Waltz notes, from how societies organize power and pursue interests. The ideas of Hobbes, Kant, and Marx loom large here. Hobbes emphasized strong states as antidotes to internal chaos. Liberals like John Stuart Mill and Richard Cobden saw peace emerging from democracy and free trade, while Marx identified capitalism as the engine of war, promising that socialism would abolish it. Yet Waltz shows how all these visions falter: even “good” states—democratic, socialist, or enlightened—can behave aggressively if pushed by fear or self-interest. Domestic reform may help but cannot eliminate war while states remain independent.

The Anarchic System Between States

Finally, the third image confronts the structure above all states: international anarchy, meaning the absence of a central authority. Waltz draws deeply from Rousseau’s stag-hunt allegory and Thucydides’ account of ancient war. Even when states want peace, they must prepare for conflict because no external power can guarantee safety. Like players in a game of poker (a metaphor Waltz borrows from John von Neumann’s game theory), each must anticipate the others' moves. The result is a balance of power—a dynamic competition that may restrain open war but never ensures lasting peace. It’s not the wickedness of leaders or the faults of nations that doom us, but the structure that traps them all.

Why This Matters to You

Waltz’s framework helps you see headlines and history differently. When superpowers clash, democracies falter, or alliances shift, you’re watching the logic of the third image unfold. Any policy or peace plan—whether Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations or today’s United Nations—succeeds only by addressing every layer of causation. You can’t expect moral appeals to suffice, and you can’t trust economic integration alone. Understanding Waltz’s images forces you to think strategically: improving human character, reforming governments, and building institutions may each help, but none will work while anarchy remains the defining feature of global life. This is the enduring tragedy of international politics, and Waltz asks you to confront it with both humility and intelligence.

Can human beings ever truly stop fighting? Waltz’s first image explores the idea that war springs from psychology—the moral and emotional flaws encoded within us. He draws on Saint Augustine, Spinoza, and Reinhold Niebuhr to show two conflicting traditions: the optimists who hope to reform man and the pessimists who view him as irredeemably self-interested.

Pessimists: Man as the Source of Evil

Saint Augustine believed humanity’s pride made perfect societies impossible. Later, Niebuhr argued that even altruistic people lapse into competition when organized in groups—the lust for power transforms love into domination. Waltz uses these thinkers to explain why moral appeals and education fail to prevent war: man's nature doesn’t change, only the environment does. Humanity’s “finite reason” endlessly clashes with infinite ambition, producing a cycle of greed, fear, and violence.

Optimists: Man as Rational and Improvable

Other theorists like Bertrand Russell and William James propose peace through education and psychological redirection. If aggression is instinctual, they say, we must channel it—send young people to build roads instead of fight wars. Waltz appreciates their creativity but warns that such approaches ignore social context: aggression is not just in individuals but in the systems that shape behavior. He illustrates this with cultural examples from Margaret Mead’s anthropology, showing that even “peaceful” societies manage conflict through stable norms and authority.

The Limits of Psychology

Waltz’s critique of behavioral science is sharp. Efforts to “cure” war through psychiatry or education, he says, rely on naive optimism. You can modify behavior inside one society, but not across thousands of independent states. Psychologists may understand interpersonal conflict, but the leap to international war demands political insight. Without recognizing the structural conditions that compel states to fear each other, all talk of curing humanity is wishful thinking.

Why Structural Change Matters

The lesson is humbling: to eliminate war, we would need to alter either human nature or the political structure that channels it. Since perfect virtue is impossible, the only realistic path is controlling conflict through institutions. Waltz contrasts moral reformers with practical thinkers like Hobbes, who built peace through the state’s monopoly on violence. The analogy carries upward—if human nature demands a state to restrain men, international politics might require a world government to restrain states. But as history shows, that step has never been achieved.

If war isn’t just about emotion, maybe it’s about politics. Waltz’s second image examines the idea that domestic systems—democracies, monarchies, or socialist states—determine how nations behave externally. This view runs from classical liberalism to Marxist socialism, each promising peace through better internal design.

Liberal Faith in Democracy

Liberals like John Stuart Mill and Woodrow Wilson claimed that democratic governments, embodying the will of peaceful citizens, would end war. Wilson’s idealism culminated in his dream of a League of Nations where reason replaced power. Yet Waltz shows that democracies fight too—they may be impulsive and moralistic, waging crusades for ideals. He compares Wilson’s interventionism with Cobden’s noninterventionism, both rooted in liberal thought yet divergent in practice. Peace based on values can breed self-righteous wars in the name of morality.

Marxism and Revisionist Socialism

Socialists took another route: they argued that capitalism causes war by creating economic inequalities and competing elites. Marx and Engels envisioned a classless world without states, whereas later revisionists like Eduard Bernstein and John Hobson sought gradual reform through democratic socialism. Hobson, analyzing imperialism, claimed wars occurred because small groups profited from them. Solve that injustice, he argued, and peace would follow. Waltz dissects these theories, noting that even socialist states—like Soviet Russia—used power politics once they gained dominance. Changing regimes doesn’t change the system’s structure.

Why Domestic Reform Fails

The problem lies in what Rousseau saw clearly: even good states act badly in an anarchic world. Each must defend itself unless an authority guarantees peace. Democracies and despotisms alike balance power and pursue survival. Waltz points out that reforming governments cannot fix global conflict because the system of states forces all to behave defensively. The second image, for all its good intentions, never escapes the shadow of the third.

Practical Lesson

For you, this means no domestic policy—however moral—guarantees peace abroad. States reflect their environments as much as their ideals. Recognizing this helps you interpret modern events: when democracies go to war or socialist nations compete, you’re seeing structure overwhelm intention. The real challenge isn’t perfecting systems—it’s managing the inevitable friction between sovereign powers.

Imagine living in a neighborhood with no police, laws, or courts. You might trust your neighbors—but you’d still lock your doors. That, Waltz argues, is the condition of international politics. The third image explains war through anarchy: the absence of overarching authority among states. This insight, drawn from Rousseau’s stag-hunt allegory and Thucydides’ history, becomes the foundation of modern realism.

Structure over Character

Waltz insists that anarchy structures behavior regardless of morality. Even virtuous states must arm because they cannot rely on others’ restraint. Like Rousseau’s hunters who betray each other for short-term rewards, nations defect in pursuit of security, not aggression. “Wars occur,” Rousseau said, “because there is nothing to prevent them.” The logic applies today: power politics arise not from evil but from systemic necessity.

The Balance of Power

To survive, states form alliances and counter-alliances—what Waltz calls the balance of power. Using game theory, he likens states to players adjusting strategies based on others’ moves. Cooperation and competition coexist, but the fear of domination drives cautious equilibrium. Historical examples, from Thucydides’ Athens and Sparta to Bismarck’s nineteenth-century alliances, illustrate how balancing arises spontaneously to preserve independence.

Freedom and Fear

In an anarchic world, independence implies self-reliance. States cherish freedom but must wield power to protect it. Waltz shows through Clausewitz and Machiavelli that survival often outweighs morality. Even non-aggressive nations respond to threats by arming—John Bright may condemn such logic as a “mischievous delusion,” but Thucydides, Morgenthau, and Hume see it as inevitable reality. The peaceful state becomes militarized by necessity, not choice.

Moral Complexity

Waltz reminds you that morality changes with circumstance. What’s immoral within states—aggression, deceit—may be rational internationally. Kant sought perpetual peace through law, but Rousseau’s realism shows why unenforceable rules fail. Until authority replaces anarchy, states must decide between moral purity and survival. That tradeoff defines modern diplomacy.

Waltz grounds his theories in historical case studies, showing how the logic of anarchy unfolds over time—from ancient Greece to the Cold War. Each era confirms the same truth: the balance of power doesn’t guarantee peace, but it prevents annihilation.

Europe's Endless Balancing

Thucydides’ Athens feared Sparta’s rise and attacked preemptively—a pattern echoed by France, Russia, and England before World War I. Waltz recounts how alliances hardened into blocs: the Triple Alliance against the Triple Entente. Mobilization itself became war, as anxiety and defensive planning spiral. Once conflict begins, each side claims it acts defensively, proving Rousseau’s dictum that “peace cannot be based on chance.”

Appeasement and Miscalculation

Between wars, leaders mislearn history. Neville Chamberlain sought to avoid alliances, believing them dangerous after 1914. Yet appeasement empowered aggressors and led to disaster. Waltz uses Chamberlain’s failure to show how lessons from one era, applied mechanically to another, can backfire—the same structural constraints produce new outcomes with tragic repetition.

Cold War Continuity

Post-1945, nuclear weapons expanded the logic of deterrence. Waltz calls it the “balance of terror”: fear replaces conquest as the peace mechanism. Clausewitz’s warning still applies—blunting the sword through feelings of humanity risks destruction when someone sharpens theirs. Every empire, from Rome to America and the Soviet Union, faces Rousseau’s dilemma: survival demands readiness for war. Moral aspiration meets structural necessity, defining statecraft’s tragic rhythm.

What History Teaches You

History, Waltz concludes, doesn’t progress by moral evolution. States adapt to new technologies and alliances, but not to a new structure. Recognizing patterns doesn’t prevent them—it merely helps us respond intelligently. The real lesson is epistemological humility: understanding why wars occur prepares you to reduce their frequency, not abolish them.

Can humanity escape its own creation—the state system? Waltz engages with philosophers and federalists who dream of world unity, analyzing both the necessity and the danger of global government.

The Logic of Unity

If anarchy breeds war, government should cure it. Thinkers like Kant and modern world federalists argue that peace requires a central authority. Waltz honors their logic but warns of their optimism. World unity may be “necessary and therefore possible,” as Robert Hutchins wrote, yet the history of nation-building proves the price: coercion before harmony. When power concentrates globally, tyranny risks replacing chaos.

Utopia and Irony

The pursuit of perfection leads to paradox. Every image—man, state, and system—suggests an ideal to cure war by removing its cause: reform men morally, reform states politically, or remove anarchy internationally. Waltz calls these prescriptions flawless in logic yet unattainable in practice. Each requires perfection inconsistent with human nature or political reality. The irony is that striving for utopia often invites catastrophe—Woodrow Wilson’s wars “for peace” or modern interventions “for democracy” exemplify moral absolutism turned violent.

Realism with Restraint

Waltz closes by contrasting idealism with sober realism. A world state might end war among nations but start oppression among all humanity. Partial solutions—law, diplomacy, deterrence—offer limited but meaningful relief. Peace, like justice, becomes relative, not absolute. The best goal isn’t to erase conflict but to contain it.

What You Can Take Away

In an age of nuclear anxiety and globalization, Waltz’s restraint feels prophetic. He invites you to accept imperfection—to work within an anarchic system rather than dream outside it. Understanding structure, not escaping it, is the first step toward wisdom in international life.