In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries economic thought and practice were predominantly carried on within the framework of that body of ideas which was later to be called “mercantilism.” Although there has been almost no systematic investigation of the relationship in mercantilist thought between economic and political objectives or ends in the field of foreign policy, certain stereotypes have become so prevalent that few scholars have seriously questioned or examined their validity. One of these stereotypes is that mercantilism was a “system of power,” that is, that “power” was for mercantilists the sole or overwhelmingly preponderant end of foreign policy, and that wealth, or “plenty,” was valued solely or mainly as a necessary means to attaining or retaining or exercising power. It is the purpose of this paper to examine in the light of the available evidence the validity of this interpretation of mercantilist thought and practice. Tracing the history of ideas, however, always runs to many words, and limitations of space force me to confine myself, even with respect to bibliographical references, to samples of the various types of relevant evidence. That the samples are fair ones I can only attest by my readiness in most cases to expand them indefinitely.

It is a cliché of Communist propaganda to describe the opposition to the peaceful and progressive policy of the Soviet Union as consisting of Wall Street, fascists and former collaborationists, the Vatican, and the right-wing Socialist “toadies.” The general impression given is one of a monolithic and wholly malevolent alliance of all the reactionary “minorities,” bent on driving the innocent and peace-loving masses into a war against the Soviet Union and the “New Democracy.” It is hardly a betrayal of confidence to point out that the Communist is not given to making distinctions. But it is possible to disentangle at least one element of truth in this somewhat harsh judgment of the world outside. This is, that the units engaged in the present world struggle are not solely, and perhaps not even primarily, the nation-states. There is, in a sense, an “East” in the “West,” and a subdued “West” in the “East.” Ideological and political movements, whether regional or world-wide in scope, have become increasingly important bearers of foreign policy. On the most significant issues of foreign policy in the present crisis, the party affiliation of a Western European makes a greater difference than his national affiliation.

The tangled affairs of Indonesia, twice thrust upon the Security Council, have served as an admirable touchstone of the principles, purposes, and effectiveness of the United Nations as well as of the policies of some of its leading members. Fundamental principles of the new postwar order were at stake. The Atlantic Charter had affirmed the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they would live, and the collapse of empires before the Japanese onslaught led to the widespread conclusion that the old colonial system was dead. These doctrines found sober and modified expression not only in Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter, but also in the more general assertion of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and of the universal application of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The rights of dependent peoples, the validity of the doctrine of self-determination, and the possibilities for peaceful change all hovered about the Security Council chamber in the course of the debates on the two Indonesian cases.

Twice within 25 years, in 1919 and again in 1944–5, the idea of the balance of power hasbeen pronounced dead, and twice it has arisen from its seeming demise soon after such funereal exercises. Foremost among the obituaries were those of American statesmen, like Woodrow Wilson and Cordell Hull. When the latter returned from conferences in Moscow in the autumn of 1943, he stated, as if he were the true heir of Wilsonism, that “as the provisionsof the fournations declarations are carried into effect, there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security.”

During recent years there has been a noticeable rise in the production of, and interest in, a relatively new kind of analysis of political behavior. Anthropologists had become increasingly concerned with describing and explaining the entire way of life of the non-literate societies they were studying. Some of them came to believe that cultural anthropology should return to home, i.e., that the methods of observation and recording, and also the theories which they had developed on so-called primitive material should be applied to our own society and other large and complex groups. At the same time, psychologists and psychiatrists had become increasingly interested in describing and explaining the entire way of life, subjective and behavioral, of the individuals they were studying. They tended to be particularly interested, on the one hand, in the broad varieties of human nature (“character types” and “defense mechanisms”) and, on the other, in the unique structure of each case. But some of them came to be interested in ascertaining the psychological regularities, if any, in large groups. The confluence of these two developments in the human sciences led to the emergence of what we may call psycho-cultural analyses of social events.

The extraordinarily difficult, almost exasperating character of the German Question is created by its many various aspects. There is the economic one: what are the relations between German and European, as well as world economies? Would not an economically strong Germany upset foreign markets and make other countries dependent upon her? There is the political issue: what ought to be the position of Germany in Europe? Is Germany able and willing to participate in a balance of power system, or would she invariably try to use her power exclusively for her own advantage? What role will Germany play in the conflict between East and West? There are problems of German internal organizations and frontiers: is a unified Germany not a constant threat to world peace? But does not a dismemberment of Germany create an eternal irredenta? There are moral and intellectual issues: what role has National Socialism played in German history? Will it not come back again, perhaps under another name, as soon as some external restraints are removed? Or is National Socialism, with its aggression and terror, only an accident for which non-Germans are at least as responsible as the Germans themselves? Have we the right to make Germans particularly accountable for a general development which only manifested itself first in Germany, and victimized the German people itself?

If peace and security are the earmarks of a successful foreign policy, the foreign policies pursued since the end of the first World War by the great Western powers were certainly less successful than any pursued by these powers since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. To say this, of course, is only to state the obvious. That the succession of failures is rooted in a marked decline in the political intelligence of the Western world is less obvious. Yet the recognition of that relationship is decisive for the understanding of the disease which holds the modern state system in its grip.

These four publications appeared in the latter half of 1947 but all of them were written near the middle of the year. Three of them deal directly with the policy which the United States should adopt toward the Soviet Union. The concern of Mr. Armstrong at first seems to be limited to “the two main objectives of American foreign policy”: “to help Europe live and to strengthen the United Nations.” Subsequently, however, although Mr. Armstrong is nowhere explicit on this point, it appears that these are techniques, rather than objectives, for the first would avert the “planned social and economic disintegration” furthered by the Soviet Union, while the second would diminish the effectiveness of Moscow's policy of “indirect aggression.” It is, therefore, not unreasonable to include Mr. Armstrong among those offering answers to the question: Where do we go from here in seeking equilibrium and even an accord with the Kremlin?

Four able and penetrating writers have recently given us their considered views on the nature and scope of international relations as a branch of higher learning.* While each of them starts from a somewhat different intellectual viewpoint, they display a striking similarity of conception of the general place of international relations (hereafter referred to as IR) in the spectrum of human knowledge. I propose here, not to subject these writings to critical scrutiny, but to use them as a starting point for a brief inspection of the scope of international relations as it now seems to be taking form in the work of the leading scholars in the field.

It is necessary to note in the beginning that “scope” is a dangerously ambiguous word. It suggests that the subject matter under inquiry has clearly discernible limits, and that all one has to do in defining its scope is to trace out these boundaries in much the manner of a surveyor marking out the bounds of a piece of real property. Actually, it is nothing of the sort. A field of knowledge does not possess a fixed extension in space but is a constantly changing focus of data and methods that happen at the moment to be useful in answering an identifiable set of questions. It presents at any given time different aspects to different observers, depending on their point of view and purpose. The boundaries that supposedly divide one field of knowledge from another are not fixed walls between separate cells of truth but are convenient devices for arranging known facts and methods in manageable segments for instruction and practice. But the foci of interest are constantly shifting and these divisions tend to change with them, although more slowly because mental habits alter slowly and the vested interests of the intellectual world are as resistant to change as those of the social world.