International Relations Quotes

“It is useful to divide the history of international relations into three periods, though in doing so we must be careful not to confuse these three periods with these three stages of the power transitions though each nation passes...

In the first period, there were as yet no industrial nations. Although.. differed... all were still pre-industrial... in the stage one of the power transition, the stage of potential power. There were differences in power between one nations and another, but these differences were not based upon industrial strength...

The second period, in which we still live (1958 n.n.), is the period of the industrial revolution. In this period some nations have industrialized and others have not. In terms of the power transition, some nations are in stage 1, some in stage 2, and some in stage 3. Differences in power between nations are tremendous. At the beginning of this period, the nations that industrialized first had a great power advantage…, but as the period progressed, they began to be hard-pressed by other nations entering stage 2 behind them.

The third period still lies in the future. It will begin when all the nations of the world have become fully industrial, i.e., when all have entered stage 3 of the power transition. At this point, the nations will again resemble each other more closely, as they did in the first period. Differences in power will continue to exists, if nations continue to be the unties of political organization, but whatever differences there are will not be based upon differential industrial advancement as they are today, but upon other, as yet unknown factors (p. 306).”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“Discussion can solve problems that guns and pills cannot.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine

“The first stage can be called stage of potential power… A nation is not industrial. Its people are primarily agricultural and the great majority of them are rural… Such a nation may be very powerful in a world where no nation is industrial. But compared to any industrial nation, even a small one, its power is slight...

The second stage of the power transition is the stage of the transitional growth… to an industrial stage… its power grows rapidly relative to that of the other pre-industrial nations whom it leaves behind.

Fundamental changes take places within the nation. There is great growth in industry and in the cities… Large number of people move out of farming and into industry and service occupations… They move from the country-side to the growing cities. Productivity per man-hour rises, the national income goes up sharply… Nationalism runs high and sometimes finds expression in aggressive action toward the outside…

So many of these changes have the effect of increasing the ability of the nation`s representatives to influence the behavior of other nations, i.e. of increasing the nation`s power… The changes that occur at the beginning of the industrialization process are qualitative, not just quantitative. It is these first fundamental changes that brings the great spurt in national power.

Of course, the speed at which a nation gains power depends largely upon the speed with which she industrializes, and both these factors have a great influence on the degree to which the rise of a new power upsets the international community (302-304).”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“If the theory of the balance of power has any applicability at all, it is to the politics of the first period, that pre-industrial, `dynastic` period when nations were kings and politics a sport, when there were many nations of roughly equivalent power, and when nations could and did increase their power largely through clever diplomacy, alliance and military adventures.

The theories of this book, and the theory of the power transition in particular, apply to the second period, when the major determinant of national power are population size, political organization, and industrial strength, and when shifts in power through internal development are consequently of great importance. Differential industrialization is the key to understanding the shifts in power in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it was not the key in the years before 1750 or so and it will not always be the key in the future.

Period 3 will require new theories. We cannot predict yet what they will be, for we cannon predict what the world will be like after all the nations are industrialized. Indeed, we may not have nations at all. By projecting current trends we can make guessed about the near future, but we cannon see very far ahead. What will the world be like when China and India are two major powers, as it seems likely they will be? (1958 n.n.)...

We are all bound by our own culture and our own experience, social scientists no less than other men... Social theories may be adequate for their day, but as time passes, they require revision. One of the most serious criticisms that can be made of the balance of power theory is that it has not been revised. Concepts and hypotheses applicable to the 16th century and to the politics of such units as the Italian city states have been taken and applied, without major revision, to the international politics of the twentieth-century nations such as the United States, England, and the Soviet Union. (p. 307)”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“When everyone says the same thing about some complex topic, what should come to your mind is, 'wait a minute, nothing can be that simple, something's wrong.' That's the immediate light that should go off in your brain when you ever hear unanimity on some complex topic." (The Ezra Klein Show 2021/04/23)”
― Noam Chomsky

“World peace begins where petty nationalistic identities end.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism

“IN OCTOBER 2019, just a few months before the novel coronavirus swept the world, Johns Hopkins University released its first Global Heath Security Index, a comprehensive analysis of countries that were best prepared to handle an epidemic or pandemic. The United States ranked first overall, and first in four of the six categories—prevention, early detection and reporting, sufficient and robust health system, and compliance with international norms. That sounded right. America was, after all, the country with most of the world’s best pharmaceutical companies, research universities, laboratories, and health institutes. But by March 2020, these advantages seemed like a cruel joke, as Covid-19 tore across the United States and the federal government mounted a delayed, weak, and erratic response. By July, with less than 5% of the world’s population, the country had over 25% of the world’s cumulative confirmed cases. Per capita daily death rates in the United States were ten times higher than in Europe. Was this the new face of American exceptionalism?”
― Fareed Zakaria, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World

“The concept of international relations is actually code for international separatism. Its purpose is not to facilitate discussion but to sustain debates. No party in these debates cares about truth or peace or unification, all they care about is their exclusive personal security. And so long as states care about national security, international security will always remain a myth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sleepless for Society

“Once the nations can genuinely engage in interventions of international unity, national security will prevail on its own.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sleepless for Society

“The shape of democracy is defined by our sense of unity, not by our ideological loyalty, not by our nationalist stubbornness, not by our religious rigidity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity

“Everybody knows that the world lacks harmony, but the question is, what do they do about it - all they do is talk, talk and talk, without realizing. It's of no use to talk of harmony, you must live harmony - and to live harmony, you must abandon all barriers that keep you from it, including those that you hold most dear.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Servitude is Sanctitude

“No country is greater than another, for each country has its strongholds as well as shortfalls.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“We have learned that the major determinants of national power are population size, political efficiency and degree of industrialization. It is shifts in such areas as these that lead to changes in the distribution of power (p. 300)”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“Thus we can say that nations that industrialize go through a power transition somewhat similar to the demographic transition described by writers on population changes. In the courses of the power transition, a nation passes from a stage of little power to a stage of greatly increased power. For convenience, the power transitions can be divided into three distinct stages: the stage of potential power; the stage of the transitional growth; the stage of the power maturity (pp. 300-306).”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“The third stage of the power transition is the stage of the power maturity… when the nation is fully industrial… technological change is still rapid, economic efficiency is high, national income continues to rise, but at a slower rate than previously… Bureaucratization seems to be increasing both in political and economic institutions... There is still room for much improvement in producing greater wealth and in distributing it…

But the great burst of energy characteristic of nations in the early stages of industrialization lies in the past for mature nations. They cannot again double and triple and quadruple their capital investment as they did in the early years…

The internal qualities that give a nation international power do not disappear in the stage of power maturity. They may even continue to increase, but not at the rate they did before, and to slow down even a little in a race where everyone is running forward is to run the risk of falling behind eventually. This is why the power of a nation must decline in the stage of power maturity, even though the nation continues to grow richer, more industrial and more efficient.

We must remember that power is relative, not absolute… Had all nations of the world gone through the industrial revolution and the concomitant demographic transition at the same time and at the same speed, the result would have been a great change in international relations but not necessarily any major shift in the distribution of power among nations. There would have been no power transition. However, industrialization has proceeded unevenly though the world… It is the differential spread of industrialization to the world and the resulting power transition, not some automatic `balancing` process`, that provides the framework of modern international politics (304-306).”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“The question is not whether China becomes the most powerful nation on earth, but rather, how long it will take her to achieve this status… (1958 n.n.)
China… need not to fight to become the most powerful.”
― A.F.K. Organski, World Politics

“We must revolt against the malicious and political game of ‘revolution’ as we know it today. According to this game, revolution is nothing but the transfer of pain from one group of people to other less fortunate and wretched groups. According to this political game, ‘revolution’ is merely imposing injustice on new groups of people. According to dirty politicians, ‘revolutions’ are just moving privilege from one elite to another.”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“Mi corazón insiste that I can't sit still,
Till the society is human and thus starts living.
Mi corazón insiste that I can't sleep in peace,
Till I bring out the peace the world holds within.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sleepless for Society

“War and peace both are manifestations of human will - whatever is your will, so will be the manifestation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society

“Readers of this book will not encounter discussions of the Middle Kingdom Syndrome, China’s concept of tianxia (“all under heaven”), imperial China’s tributary system, or strategizing as reflected by the board game wei ch’i. These ideas are not entirely irrelevant to China’s contemporary international relations, but these references serve more the purpose of conjuring up some cultural disposition without explicating the interpretive logic necessary to show the usefulness or validity of the suggested extrapolation. It is about as useful as invoking Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, the idea of Fortress America, the analogy of American football, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s treatise on sea power, and even Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian War to illuminate current U.S. foreign policy.
Any country with a long history and a rich culture, including China, offers contested ideas and competing, even divergent, doctrines and schools of thought. Indeed, strategic thoughts often embody bimodal injunctions, such as to be cautious and audacious, confident and vigilant, uncompromising and flexible, optimistic about eventual victory and realistic about short-term set back (Bobrow 1965, 1969; Bobrow, Chan, and Kringen 1979). Chinese diplomatic discourse and military treatises feature both lofty Confucian rhetoric on the efficacy of moral suasion and hard-nosed, realpolitik recognition of military coercion (Feng 2007; Johnston 1995)— just as contemporary analyses of and pronouncements about U.S. policies often incorporate both liberal and realist themes and arguments. Such elements can coexist.”
― Steve Chan, Looking for Balance: China, the United States, and Power Balancing in East Asia

“Moreover, there is often a gap between one’s self-image (one that may even be shared by foreigners) and a more complicated record of history. China’s interstate history is replete with wars and military campaigns that belie the Confucian dogma stressing “soft power” based on ethical teachings and cultural appeal. Actual practice has often departed from ritualistic rhetoric and official orthodoxy. Notwithstanding arguments to the contrary, the Chinese have not always eschewed maritime initiatives, shunned commercial contact with foreigners, or insisted that the latter be treated unequally under the tributary system (e.g., Dreyer 2007; Fairbank 1968; Levathes 1994; Reid and Zheng 2009; Rossabi 1983). Nor has China always managed to maintain a hierarchical system within its borders or in East Asia. Its regional hegemony has not always been accompanied by peace; there have been numerous wars, especially when dynastic authority has declined and imperial rule weakened (e.g., Hui 2008; Wang 2009). Even China’s Great Wall, both as a physical and ideational construct, shows the considerable distance that can separate myth-making from historical reality (e.g., Waldron 1990). As these and earlier remarks suggest, I am generally skeptical about sweeping cultural, historical, and even psychological attributions, such as those suggesting ostensible Chinese nationalism, ethnocentrism, yearning for order, or proclivity for authoritarian rule (e.g., Pye 1968) as a basis for understanding contemporary Chinese foreign policy.”
― Steve Chan, Looking for Balance: China, the United States, and Power Balancing in East Asia

“Sonnet of Nation Building

Nation means not land,
Nation means not border.
Nation means sentience and sanity,
Nation means willing to treat disorder.
Nation means not habit,
Nation means not tradition.
Nation means reason and acceptance,
Nation means conscious amalgamation.
Nations means not law,
Nations means not policy.
Nation means a genuine goodness,
Nation means an accountable citizenry.
In the name of nation do not act tribal.
Nation without narrowness is a land universal.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Solo Standing on Guard: Life Before Law

“In the name of nation do not act tribal. Nation without narrowness is a land universal.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Solo Standing on Guard: Life Before Law

“Nonsectarianism is peace.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism

“If even one generation becomes nonsectarian, in thought, in feeling, and in action, all geopolitical conflict will disappear within a century.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism

“Sonnet of Nationality

Nation, nation whatever you are,
Time it is for you to disappear.
Plenty chaos you've caused so far,
Nation, nation now you disappear.
Long ago we lived in tribes,
Slowly we expanded our tiny hives.
Behold ye all the time arrives,
To expand again and merge with all lives.
Nationality keeps the world from peace,
Diplomacy keeps the intention on leash.
Partisanism hides the brotherhood keys,
Self-obsession fans sectarian deeds.
Let the borders trouble the tribal gov,
In our hearts let’s rise as citizens of love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism

“Sonnet of Progress

Where the nation ends,
There the world begins.
Where the self fades,
There community begins.
Where luxury withers,
There equality begins.
Where biases shrink,
There truth begins.
Where pride dies,
There growth begins.
Where rigidity ends,
There life begins.
Such true life is forever revered.
Prejudice conquered is world conquered.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism

“When you wipe out your national allegiance, the whole world becomes your family, and then you start to see the real face of each nation, including their strongholds as well as their shortcomings.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

“We are not a species, we are a family.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

“Nation without narrowness is a land universal.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Solo Standing on Guard: Life Before Law