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July/August 2024 Issue

The Real Rules of
International Relations

The Real Rules of International Relations The Credibility Trap Fear Factor The Most Dangerous Game Why They Don’t Fight The Trade Truce? The Power of Principles
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The Real Rules of International Relations
The Real Rules of International Relations The Credibility Trap Fear Factor The Most Dangerous Game Why They Don’t Fight The Trade Truce? The Power of Principles
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July/August 2024

“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist,” wrote John Maynard Keynes nearly a century ago. “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

Keynes was speaking of economics, but the same can be said of foreign policy. Practical people in decision-making roles may dismiss the theoretical arguments that consume international relations scholars—about war and peace, order and disorder, interdependence and insecurity—as irrelevant to actual statecraft. But they, too, are hearing voices in the air; their policies and strategies reflect judgments that in fact come straight out of theoretical arguments about international relations. Often enough, those policies and strategies rest on defunct theories and outdated assumptions: about when a leader’s credibility does or does not matter, about when a show of force induces restraint or reaction, about what kinds of interdependence promote peace or war, and more.

The essays that follow trace the history of, and explain the latest thinking on, the ideas most central to current geopolitical debates. They are an attempt to understand the rules that govern international relations and where, how, and why they differ from the often unstated assumptions that shape foreign policy today.

The Credibility Trap

Is Reputation Worth Fighting For?

Keren Yarhi-Milo

Audio available for this article

Fear Factor

How to Know When You’re in a Security Dilemma

Charles L. Glaser

Audio available for this article

The Most Dangerous Game

Do Power Transitions Always Lead to War?

Manjari Chatterjee Miller

Audio available for this article

Why They Don’t Fight

The Surprising Endurance of the Democratic Peace

Michael Doyle

Audio available for this article

The Trade Truce?

When Economic Interdependence Does—and Doesn’t—Promote Peace

Stephen G. Brooks

Audio available for this article

The Power of Principles

What Norms Are Still Good For

Tanisha M. Fazal

Audio available for this article

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