ABSTRACT
Ecological scarcity intensifies the fundamental problem of international politics-the achievement of world order—by adding further to the preexisting difficulties of a state of nature. European nations may cope somewhat better with ecological scarcity than the United States, despite the greater physical challenges they will face. Most less-developed countries, and especially the group of exceptionally poor countries sometimes called "the Fourth World," are not sufficiently developed to experience neo-Malthusian ecological scarcity. Diplomats, like national leaders, have attempted to handle the issues of ecological scarcity not as part of a larger problematique, but piecemeal, so that their interaction with other problems is all but ignored. The clear danger is that, instead of promoting world cooperation, ecological scarcity will simply intensify the Hobbesian war of all against all and cause armed peace to be replaced by overt international strife.
