¹ I am grateful for suggestions for revision made by Peter Gellman, Robert Gilpin, Barry Strauss, Robert Keohane, and an anonymous reviewer of the Review. I wrote this essay while a visiting fellow of the Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, supported by a SSRC/MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in International Peace and Security Studies. Another version of this paper will be appearing as a chapter in Hegemonic Rivalry: Athens and Sparta, the United States and the Soviet Union, edited by Richard Ned Lebow and Barry Strauss, Westview Press, forthcoming.

² Vasquez, John A., The Power of Power Politics (New Brunswick, 1983), pp. 162–170.Google Scholar

³ Cited in Vasquez, , Power of Power Politics, pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

⁴ The quotations come from: Keohane, Robert O., ‘Realism, Neorealism, and the Study of World Politics,’ in Keohane, Robert O. (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York, 1986), p. 7Google Scholar; Nye, Joseph S., ‘Neorealism and Neoliberalism,’ World Politics 40, 2 (1988), pp. 236–251, p. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jervis, Robert, ‘Realism, Game Theory and Cooperation,’ World Politics 40, 3 (1988), pp. 317–349, p. 317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Ashley, Richard, ‘The Poverty of Neorealism’ in Keohane, (ed.), Neorealism, pp. 260–263, 297Google Scholar. And see Alker, Hayward R., ‘The Dialectical Logic of Thucydides's Melian Dialogue’ American Political Science Review 82, 3 (1988), pp. 805–820CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a similar criticism in which he focuses on the dialectical logic of Thucydides's Melian Dialogue. Hoffmann, Stanley, ‘An American Social Science: International Relations,’ Daedalus 1 (1977), p. 44Google Scholar, also defended a discontinuity thesis in the social scientific variant of international relations. But he placed the break at, not after, Morgenthau. Hoffmann noted Morgenthau's claim to have discovered a set of laws of power, which established a scientific field of endeavour that took root in postwar America in the new discipline of international relations.

⁶ Wight, Martin, Power Politics (London, 1978), p. 101.Google Scholar

⁷ For example, this view appears to fit Wolfer's, ArnoldDiscord and Collaboration (Baltimore, 1962Google Scholar) (see esp. ch. 1, 2, 4); Aron's, RaymondPeace and War (New York, 1966Google Scholar); Waltz's, KennethMan, the State and War (New York, 1959Google Scholar); (‘anarchy is the framework of world politics’ but ‘the forces that determine policy’ are located within the nation, p. 238); Hoffmann's, Stanley ‘Theory and International Relations’ (1965), (see esp. pp. 15–17Google Scholar) in addition to that of Martin Wight and a number of other scholars in the field. It also follows Vasquez's basic description of Realism in Vasquez, Power of Power Politics, p. 28.

⁸ Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations, fourth edition (New York, 1967), pp. 4 and 32.Google Scholar

⁹ Morgenthau, , Politics Among Nations, first edition (New York, 1949), p. 210Google Scholar. A Minimalist, such as Wight, would disagree. The heterogeneity of the system means that the only shared trait among states is the mutual recognition of sovereignty and territory (Wight, , Power Politics, p. 106Google Scholar). This presupposes some similarity of culture. But it also allows for great diversity in that all else, including motivations, and methods of decision, can differ among states.

¹⁰ Morgenthau, Hans J., In Defense of the National Interest (New York, 1951Google Scholar). Thus according to Morgenthau and Kenneth Thompson, the balance of power is really a doctrine of prudence for a ‘rationally conducted policy … for those nations which wish to preserve their independence’ Principles and Problems of International Politics, p. 104.

¹¹ Waltz, Kenneth N., The Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass, 1979), p. 96–97.Google Scholar

¹² Keohane, Robert O., ‘Theory of World Politics; Structural Realism and Beyond’, in Finifter, Ada (ed.), Political Science: The State of the Discipline (Washington, 1983), p. 172.Google Scholar

¹³ Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, p. 75Google Scholar. The structural determination depends, we need to add, on the systemic interaction being sufficiently intense to select very efficiently for appropriate behaviour, such as would be observed under the economist's model of perfect competition. See the valuable discussion in Keohane, , ‘Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Polities’, pp. 171–175.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Bipolarity (the economist's ‘bilateral monopoly’) may, however, strain against the assumption of perfect competition.

¹⁵ Neither of these genealogies is uncontroversial. There is a large and interesting literature offering competing interpretations of Hobbes and Rousseau and Machiavelli. Each interpretation has significant and diverse implications concerning the significance of their theories for international politics. In this paper, I propose to concentrate on the equally controversial interpretive debate concerning Thucydides.

¹⁶ All translations unless otherwise noted are from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by , RexWarner (Harmondsworth, 1954Google Scholar).

¹⁷ Cohen, David, ‘Justice, Interest and Political Deliberation in Thucydides,’ Quaderni Urbinati 16, 1 (1984), pp. 35–60, p. 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the valuable and differing discussions of this issue in Finley, M. I., ‘introduction’ to Thucydides, Peloponnesian WarGoogle Scholar (see n. 16 above) (‘a moralist's work,’ etc., p. 32), Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca, 1972), p. 11Google Scholar, and Kagan, Donald, ‘The Speeches in Thucydides and the Mytilene Debate,’ Yale Classical Studies 24 (1975Google Scholar).

¹⁸ Diodotus did speak deceptively. He seems to have misled the assembly into believing that only the local oligarchs were rebellious, when it appeared that many more were involved (see Connor, W. Robert, Thucydides (Princeton, 1984), pp. 87–88Google Scholar). But we need not assume that his entire argument was deceptive, anymore than we need to agree that Cleon made a true case for just punishment. Diodotus specifically chose not to make a moralistic or legalistic argument, and his prudence led him to approve reprisals that were categorically neither moral nor legal.

¹⁹ Thucydides's own views on what constituted wise and prudent policy are stated most clearly in II: 65 where he praises Pericles and his policies. Under Pericles, Athens was ‘wisely led,’ ‘firmly guarded,’ ‘at its greatest.’ Pericles displayed ‘foresight’ and ‘integrity,’ unlike his successors many of whom were governed by ‘private ambition’ and were a party to numerous ‘mistakes’ such as the expedition to Sicily.

²⁰ I follow the discussion in Connor, , Thucydides, pp. 154–156Google Scholar, on this issue.

²¹ Cornford, Francis M., Thucydides Mythhistoricus (1907) (London, 1965), pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

²² Ibid. chs. 2–3, and pp. 8–13.

²³ Kagan, Donald, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca, 1969), pp. 357–364Google Scholar, and Garst, Daniel, ‘Thucydides and Neorealism,’ International Studies Quarterly (03 1989Google Scholar).

²⁴ Hudson, G. F., The Far East in World Politics (New York, 1937), p. 198.Google Scholar

²⁵ Garst, , ‘Thucycides and Neorealism.’Google Scholar

²⁶ A second set of critics have conceded that Thucydides attempted a power oriented explanation but argue that Thucydides's explanation is simply historically incorrect. This was the charge made by Adcock, F. E. in ‘The Breakdown of the Thirty year Peace, 445–431’ in Bury, J. B., Cook, S. A. and Adcock, F. E. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History (New York, 1927), pp. 190–191Google Scholar, ch. 7, and supported by Donald Kagan's revisionist history of the causes of the Peloponnesian War (Kagan, , Outbreak, pp. 373–374Google Scholar). The crux of Kagan's revision was that the truest cause according to Realist explanation was clearly not true. Athen's power was not growing between the end of the First Peloponnesian War (446) and the diplomatic crises leading to the Second (435) (see Kagan, Outbreak ch. 19). The growth of Athenian power in the 450s would have justified a Spartan preventative war. The Peace of 446/5, however, settled the First War following Athenian losses that radically reduced its power and according to terms that were acceptable to both Athens and Sparta. The actual outbreak of the Second—Thucydides's war—was in 431. Athen's power did not increase between the two; so power cannot be used to explain the war or Sparta's fear. Athenian power in 431 probably did not match its power in the 450s, when its fleet fought in Egypt, it occupied its seafaring rival Megara, and it controlled most of central Greece (Boeotia). But Athens did improve its strategic position after the peace of 446—that is, after the defeat in the first war which saw the loss of each of those possessions. Thucydides may have exaggerated when he called 431 the high summer of Athenian power (I: 1), but in the preceding fourteen years, there is some evidence of real strategic advance on the part of Athens.

Athens, as de Romilly and more recently de Ste Croix have noted, consolidated its naval preeminence, establishing complete command of the Eastern Mediterranean. It shifted to a coherent imperial strategy by shedding its least defensible landed possessions while colonizing the more defensible island of Euboea. In 441–10, Athens crushed the strategically well-sited Byzantium and Samos (the single largest among its Delian ‘allies’) and thereby absorbed them as subordinate tribute-paying states. Athens thus completed the transformation of the hegemonic alliance of Greek states it had inherited from Sparta after the Persian War into a true maritime empire (arche) effectively controlled from the imperial center (Romilly, Jacqueline de, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, translated by Thody, Philip (New York, 1963), pp. 19–20Google Scholar; Ste Croix, , Origins, pp. 60Google Scholar). In 437 it sent major colonial expeditions to the Black Sea shore (Sinope, and Nymphaeum in the Crimea). This enhanced its commercial presence in that important granary, which was now more secure than Boeotia had been, as long as Athens maintained naval predominance. Athens then secured its northern sea route by planting colonies and forts in Thrace (437–6). It stocked a war chest of 6,000 talents drawn from surplus tribute. And, in the prewar crisis, Athens added a defensive alliance with Corcyra, the second naval power of Greece.

²⁷ Kagan, , Outbreak, pp. 351–356.Google Scholar

²⁸ Gruen, Erich, ‘Thucydides, his Critics and Interpreters,’ The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1, 2 (1971), pp. 327–337, p. 331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ Schlatter, Richard (ed.), Hobbes' Thucydides (New Brunswick, 1975), p. 18.Google Scholar

³⁰ Alker, Hayward, ‘The Dialectical Logic…’Google Scholar, has analyzed the Melian Dialogue using (appropriately) dialectical methods to uncover Thucydides's interpretation of how force can govern logic.

³¹ Kateb, George, ‘Thucydides's History: A Manual of Statecraft’, Political Science Quarterly 69, 4 (1964), pp. 481–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Princeton, 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar), makes this biological–psychological continuity an important part of the reason that justifies the extension of Thucydidean and Realist thought into the present.

³³ Cornford, , Mythhistoricus, pp. 64–65Google Scholar.

³⁴ Pouncey, Peter R., The Necessities of War (New York, 1980), p. xiiGoogle Scholar; Bluhm, William T., ‘Causal Theory in Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War’, Political Studies Review 10, 1 (1962), pp. 15–35, pp. 32–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago, 1958), p. 292Google Scholar.

³⁶ Croix, Ste, Origins, pp. 18–19Google Scholar; Saxonhouse, Arlene, ‘Nature and Convention in Thucydides's History,’ Polity 10, 4 (1977), pp. 461–487.Google Scholar

³⁷ For example, Kenneth Waltz made structural factors the decisive reasons in his arguments against the significance of economic interdependence and for the stability of bipolar systems. Waltz, , TheoryGoogle Scholar, chs. 7–8.

³⁸ No more than an economist would regard a single bankruptcy as evidence of the inefficiency of a market would a Structuralist regard a single defeat as evidence of the weakness of structural explanation. But when large though corrupted states are neither easily eliminated by competition nor socialized to rational security and instead have the sort of influence Athens—and before her Persia and after Sparta (very briefly)—have on the international system, then particular actors are shaping the system as much as the system is structuring actor outcomes.

³⁹ I attempt to provide support for and some qualifications to these propositions in Doyle, Michael W., Empires (Ithaca, 1986), ch. 3, pp. 54–81Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ They were ‘democracies like themselves,’ of a considerable size, ‘well-equipped,’ and polities against whom ‘fifth columns’ (collaborators) were ineffective. VII: 55.

⁴¹ Wight, , Power Politics, p. 24.Google Scholar