The Importance of Africa to The World System After 9/11 Attacks: War on Terrorism or Integration for Sustainable Development

Realism as a theory of conflict inherent in IR. The question is why and for what reasons?

Conflict is inherent in IR. Every state is in pursuit of its proper national interests by the use of force. No leviathan or friendship in IR between states. No leviathan interferes with international anarchy where an ethics of responsibility (Max Weber). Rivalry is understood by power and the unique action of the state. Peace requires huge means and highlights following. Better to count on your proper capacity to defend yourself, than on eventual support from allies (the principle of collective security and security dilemma),a case in point is historic France under Degaulle who wanted a strong presidency. These principles when applied always create a suspicious climate in reinforcing inquiry of the other and heighten the possibility of conflict.

Conflict is inherent in IR and the states are the principal actors. Political philosophy emphasize how harsh the state of nature need be, in Hobbes works of 17^th century England wracked by civil war, emphasized insecurity, force, survival and describing humanity as being in a constant state of war. John Locke writing on a more stable England argued that although a state of nature lacked a common sovereign, people could develop ties and make contracts, and thereby anarchy could be less threatening. According to Nye, these two views are the philosophical precursors of two currents in international politics. One more pessimistic and the other more optimistic corresponding to the realist and the liberal approaches to international politics. He claims realism has been the dominant tradition in thinking about international politics with the central problem of international politics being war and the use of force with the state as central actors. He justify his claim with the example of the US under president Nixon and his secretary of state Kissinger seeking to maximize the power of the US by minimizing the ability of other states to jeopardize US security (Nye 2007, p. 4-5).

The liberals criticize the realists view of anarchy in the international scene, as showing the absence of any legitimate authority in the international system based on rules or capable of enforcing rules in the world politics. This means that conflicts between self interested states entails the danger of war and the possibility of coercion, that is the call for a more complex moral and political psychology with international regimes. It shows also that the realists are obsessed with power in conflict prevention and fail to take into consideration several mechanisms of existing cooperation. (Katzenstein et al 1999, pp.18-22).

Realist response to the liberal complain; The realist claim the liberals overstate the difference between domestic and international politics, they argue by explaining the picture of anarchy as a Hobbesian ‘’state of war’’, focuses on extreme situations, quoting Hobbes ‘’Just as stormy weather does not mean perpetual rain, so a state of war does not means constant war’’, like Londoners carrying umbrella on sunny April days, the prospect of war on an anarchic system make states keep armies even in time of peace. States prefer to have self aid concerning security as evidenced by the outbreak of the WW I and II which neither history nor the relative level of economic interdependence ties of labour unions, intellectual movements, and flow of capital, could made impossible.

On the other hand, liberalism traceable in western political philosophy to Baron de Montesquieu and Immanuel Kant in 18^TH Century France and Germany respectively and such 19^th Century British think tanks as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and a modern American example found in the works of political scientist and President Woodrow Wilson. According to Nye claims, The liberals see a global society that functions alongside the state and sets part of the context of the states, he argues countries often care about their military but care much more about their economic wealth, about social issues such as stopping drug traffic and the spread of AIDS. He argues trade crosses borders, peoples having contacts with each other for example student studying in foreign countries, and international institutions such as the UN (Nye 2007, p. 9) and recently the rise of multinational corporations, and international financial institutions shows that the realist view of pure anarchy is insufficient. While (Strange 1984,p15)claims of liberals views of a prime value of efficiency above all other social values, a concept of world economy based on equilibrium processes, a goal of global welfare and a focus on the state which she argues provide secure political frameworks for the markets shows that the realist view of pure anarchy inherent in the international system is insufficient. Thus the reinforcement of the security of state, though necessary only increases the possibility of conflict between states where the concept of security dilemma.

Whereas the Marxism traceable to Karl Marx and Lenin sees a violent revolution in Western Europe by the masses (class fight); the history of all societies even till date is that of class fight. History of Marxism only follows a continues fight between the antagonistic class to the world of successive production. In other word and according to Karl Marx, the history of humanity is that of fight between the oppressed and their oppressors, slaves and masters, proletariats and bourgeoisies. This duality of internal society inspires IPE, a vision of the divided world, made up of centre industrial countries, and a periphery made up of weak and scattered states. This vision developed by the dependency and world system theory prolonged the class fight into a world wide standard. Marxism predicted that the wage disparity among domestic classes within a given society and the inequality of wealth that prevailed among states, this not withstanding the competition between capitalist states over market and capital flows, will lead to a revolution within capitalist states and ultimate destruction

Realist response to the liberal complain; The realist claim the liberals overstate the difference between domestic and international politics, they argue by explaining the picture of anarchy as a Hobbesian “state of war’’, focuses on extreme situations, quoting Hobbes ‘’Just as stormy weather does not mean perpetual rain, so a state of war does not means constant war’’, like Londoners carrying umbrella on sunny April days, the prospect of war on an anarchic system make states keep armies even in time of peace. States prefer to have self aid concerning security as evidenced by the outbreak of the WW I and II which neither history nor the relative level of economic interdependence ties of labour unions, intellectual movements, and flow of capital, could made impossible.