ABSTRACT
‘Blackmail’ in its original sense certainly meant the attempt to impose one’s will on another party by the threat of force, and in civil society this is rightly considered a heinous offence; involving as it does a contempt for the due process of law and striking at the foundations of the State. In relations between sovereign states force is still, regrettably, the ultima ratio, and every Power with the capacity to do so uses the ultimate threat of force as an indispensable element in its policy. If one accepts the status quo one will condemn any threat to use force in changing it. But even here moral judgments are not easy to make. The only people in any position to condemn ‘Soviet blackmail’, or blackmail in general as an instrument of policy, are those who are working to create a world order in which even the mightiest States will be subject to the rule of law.
