ABSTRACT

This chapter shows that certain basic human needs—security, pride, and economic well-being—do not inherently promote war, but do promote war, in the anarchic, Hobbesian state of the world, when combined with certain definable forms of misperception. The idea of a conflict between countries composed essentially of reasonably good guys, like oneself, and similar reasonably good guys on the other side, with some real guilt and much misperception on each side, is foreign to the thinking of most people. In Perception and Misperception in International Politics, a seminal study, Robert Jervis suggests an answer: It depends, he contends, on the intentions of the adversary. If the adversary is a Hitler, determined to expand whenever the price of doing so does not seem too high, raising the price is a rational way to prevent aggression and war. Empathy is the great antidote to the misperceptions that cause war.