Tuesday, November 6, 2012

National Interest or World Interest: What Must Prevail

Neither of these thinkers had any purpose of a world confederation, but both perceived a practical value to cooperative relationships, in the form of alliances or a broad support base.

In an international conflict, lie Tzu regards the best strategy as forestalling the enemy in a way that renders war unnecessary. The second best is to " fervency alliances" (Sun Tzu 3). It is clear that Sun Tzu does not mean attacking the enemy's allies, which could solitary(prenominal) draw them more strongly into a war in which they might otherwise give the enemy only nominal support. Instead, he means that a good strategist seeks to scramble off the enemy's allies, denying him their support.

Sun Tsu also writes that "if you do not cope for alliances anywhere, do not foster authority anywhere, but just extend your personal influence, threatening opponents, this makes town and country defenseless" (13). That is, bullying and blusterin


tactics unsurprisingly execute enemies rather than allies; those who use such tactics ofttimes end up finding themselves isolated.
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Niccolo Machiavelli, in his great industrial plant The Prince and The Discourses, is primarily concerned with the internal power politics of states. The equivalent basic principles apply, however, of the need for coalition-building and the dangers of making enemies needlessly. Thus, for example, Machiavelli states in the header of Chapter thirty-two of The Discourses that a "republic or a prince should not pass on securing the good will of the people until they themselves are in difficulties" (Machiavelli 196). Likewise, eventide a powerful nation should seek to build a pool of goodwill for itself in advance, rather than waiting for a crisis to erupt. Indeed Machiavelli argued that the warring city-states of Italy should unite, forming if not a world community then an "Italian community" (94-98).<
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