ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with predominantly negative attitudes toward violent conflict stemming from conceiving of it as a violation of an existing “international order” or else as a phenomenon that occurs because of a lack of a world order. “International law” had its origins in attempts to regulate war among states that had peaceful intercourse with each other in periods between wars. The dominant ideas of eighteenth-century Europe are sometimes subsumed under “rationalism.” Coexistence of the “two systems” is central in the Soviet leaders’ conception of a world order. The United Nations was an attempt to revive the League of Nations, again based on the concept of collective security, this time to be realized by a frank recognition of the power distribution that resulted from the outcome of World War II. Common to all transnational conceptions of a world order which challenge incumbent power is an explicit rejection of “national interest” as the overriding value in the conduct of human affairs.
