Chain gangs and passed Bucks

Kenneth Waltz’s rigorous recasting of traditional balance-of-power theory has provided the intellectual foundation for much of the most fruitful recent work in the fields of international politics and national security. ¹ But there is a tension between Waltz’s theory and those who apply it in their practical research agendas. Waltz’s is a theory of international politics; it addresses properties of the international system, such as the recurrence of war and the recurrent formation of balances of power. ² Those who have applied Waltz’s ideas, however, have normally used them as a theory of foreign policy to make predictions about or prescriptions for the strategic choices of states. ³