ABSTRACT
In this chapter I shall argue first that leading theorists of power in international relations qualify their theories so as to render their assertions near-truistic, second that we are more likely to go wrong in the future-oriented analysis of foreign policy by limiting ourselves to such theory than by avoiding theory altogether, but third that other kinds of theoretical tools are useful for the exploration of international relations and foreign policy, including both pre-theory in the sense of eclectic frameworks of analysis and meta-theory in the sense of theory about pre-theory.
