Waltz’s article “Why Iran Should Get The Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability”, through his assertion of the tranquillizing potential of Iran developing a nuclear armament capability, was in my opinion extraordinarily illustrative of the dangerous limitations of the neo-realist position within IR.  Waltz rejects the notion that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms would engender further global and regional instability, advocating instead that the United States and European Union cease applying economic and diplomatic sanctions in the hope that Iran can be coerced into abandoning said program (an outcome Waltz dismisses as “unlikely”) in favour of simply allowing Iran to enter the nuclear club. In support of his argument that nuclear parity “produce[s] more regional and international stability, not less”, Waltz cites the examples of India, Pakistan and China, noting that nuclear weapons states  “feel increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers”, leading to a less belligerent foreign policy.

Waltz’s reasoning process, drawing upon specific examples of prior state behaviour and extrapolating Iran’s probable course of action in the event of sanctions continuing based upon said examples, reflects to me the parochial character of neo-realism as a theoretical approach to international relations. His dismissal of objections relating to the Iranian state’s ideological character are a perfect illustration of the billiard ball perception of states within neo-realism; for Waltz, the notion that the Iranian government could behave in a self destructive manner as a result of fanaticism is not worth considering because he refuses to construe any state as having a particular or unique behavioural paradigm. His persistent refrain that rationality dictates that Iran will not use its nuclear weapons in an offensive capacity reflects an additional deficiency of neo-realism; that it assumes state actions are deliberately undertaken by rational actors, without the potential for disaster through incompetence.

Domestic forces are briefly referenced in lip-service to constructivist concerns, with the existence of “hardliners”, and Waltz pours scorn on the notion that Iran’s foreign policy is dictated by “mad mullahs”. But history indicates that the regime is willing to pointlessly antagonize militarily superior foes when it perceives that doing so is necessary from an ideological perspective- for example, issuing a fatwa for the murder of UK citizen Salman Rushdie in 1989, in a move that alienated Western powers committed to the principle of freedom of expression for no material gain. This policy of promoting state terrorism has persisted into the 21st Century, with state run agencies as recently as 2016 fundraising an additional $600,000 (adding to an existing $2.8m fund) as a bounty for Rushdie’s head. What is this policy, that invites vehement criticism from so much of the international community, if not an irrational commitment to a unique collection of ideological precepts? How can Iran be argued to exist in the same mould as states not founded on a fanatical interpretation of Islam?

Of course, such an example is manifestly different to the use of nuclear weapons, but it does highlight the fact that identity plays a role in motivating states to undertake actions not calculated to maximize power acquisition, but rather to fulfill abstract and often incomprehensible objectives. Waltz’s interpretation of the Iranian nuclear situation exposes neo-realism’s dangerous oversimplification of the international system.

Waltz also fails to consider the additional challenges that stem from the distinct qualitative nature of nuclear weapons in a MAD context- namely that accidents which are easily absorbed with conventional weapons can spiral into annihilation when nuclear weapons are involved. Incidents such as Exercise Able Archer 83, which almost triggered nuclear war due to the misconception by the Soviet Union that the exercises were in fact preparations for a full scale attack- it was only by chance that the officer in charge of Soviet orbital missile early warning systems dismissed the reports as a glitch. Had his character been more alarmist, nuclear war could have ensued, with his decision to enable a launch being a rational one.

An increase in the number of nuclear weapons within the international system introduces the logical increased likelihood of their use based on imperfect information/imperfect perception, particularly in an environment so deeply entrenched in seemingly intractable identity politics as the Middle East where assumptions of belligerence are ingrained within states’ defence policy. Waltz and neo-realism as a whole do not account for any kind of unique psychological paradigm that might impede rational thought. Thinking in absolutes leads to discounting context and nuance- and with nuclear weapons, the balance of probability is not something to base policy on, due to the apocalyptic consequences of the improbable happening. The potential for human error does not allow me to reasonably countenance any attempt at nuclear proliferation, particularly when examination of public rhetoric leads me to genuinely believe that hostile intent exists on the part of the acquisitive state. 

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As a third year International Relations student, I will admit that in selecting course 367B I had relatively modest expectations as to the potential for learning something completely new. I believed that my first year had provided me with a sufficient education regarding the internal debates of the discipline- having covered the theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism to a degree within my first year and having felt comfortable applying them in a, in hindsight, very general way within discussion and written work.

Of course, learning is concerned not only with known unknowns, but unknown unknowns, to crib from Rumsfeld. For me, the course has already begun to illustrate the extent to which much of the academic discipline of IR was an unknown unknown to me.

What conceptual grounding I did have, and my conception of the applicability of the various theories, was uncomfortably close to Professor Crawford’s recounting of the academic environment of the 1980s- realism was, in my mind, king, appealing to my own deeply held cynicism and appreciation for absolute principles such as the Six Principles of Political Realism expressed within Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, according to Mao- given the amount he was able to amass, I am inclined to agree with him.

Liberalism was at best naive and at worst wilfully ignorant in my eyes, this assessment being based on cherry-picked historical examples (such as the failure of the League of Nations and the various high-profile deficiencies of the United Nations) and a deliberate deconstruction of key arguments within it (e.g. Democratic Peace Theory being a driver of peace only dyadically rather than monadically, despite the precepts of the theory indicating that peace should be a general inclination of democracies regardless of who they are facing)

Constructivism, whilst not a theory I would dismiss out of hand, was something I felt to be rather specialised and lacking in practical application- as if the events of international relations are socially constructed, prediction of the progress of the world was extremely difficult to conduct, as by their very nature socially constructed realities are nigh impossible to discern when they are reality.

In general, theory seemed to me to boil down to unrealistic aspirations for utopia (liberalism), impractical, mainly academic analysis (constructivism), or a misanthropic but ultimately accurate conception of humankind as amoral, power hungry and tribal (realism). Not to mention, dry and simplistic assessments of human beings, who fail for the most part to conform to simplistic assessments of their motivations and behaviours.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised by Professor Crawford’s class from the outset- his focus upon the academic context whilst retaining crucial actual historical incidents as illustrative points served to force me to consider the blind-spots I had cultivated in my studies. I had never taken seriously the notion that my own process of receiving and processing knowledge might be fundamentally flawed, with epistemology being a vague consideration as I formulated my opinions on the status of the world and the causes and consequences of key international events.

Whilst my pessimistic belief in the supremacy of realism remains, Professor Crawford’s highlighting of the parochial nature of realism as a theory given the development of the international system in recent years has ignited my curiosity. Whilst we may not be able to come to a definitive conclusion as to any objective laws of international relations (there is no law in IR, which I found a concise and effective maxim to remember), I am confident through studying theories of IR I might be able to at least be able to anticipate one of a number of eventualities that may take place in various future scenarios. Just because I cannot define all of the variables in play, does not mean that they are meaningless, or that a more simplistic analysis is right. In this class, I hope to be able to understand my own limitations in interpreting events, and perhaps take a more eclectic theoretical approach.