Related: Sunday Globe Special: Waltz's Wisdom
That was May 19.
"Kenneth Waltz, leading voice on international relations" by Emily Langer | Washington Post, May 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — Kenneth Waltz — a widely admired scholar of international relations who was best known to the broader public for his theory that, as far as nuclear weapons are concerned, ‘‘more may be better’’ — died May 12 at a hospital in New York City. He was 88.
A guy by the name of Niels Bohr argued something along the same line (I imagine he would be supporting Iran right now). I saw a guy argue the U.S doesn't attack people with nuclear weapons and does attack those without (this after Iraq) at a peace protest and the stunned gasps.... I later felt sorry for the guy because he was basically attacked even though he was right.
He had pneumonia, said Mira Rapp-Hooper, his research assistant at Columbia University. Dr. Waltz had taught for more than two decades at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the Columbia faculty in the 1990s.
He ranked among the top five most influential scholars of international relations to emerge from the post-World War II era, said Stephen Walt, a Harvard University professor and former student of Dr. Waltz’s.
‘‘He had a huge impact,’’ Walt said. ‘‘Even people who disagreed with him had to think about why he cast this enormous shadow over the field.’’
Is that Walt of Walt/Mearsheimer fame?
Dr. Waltz’s books, respected for their penetrating insight, became staples of higher education. Among those classics was his first book, ‘‘Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis,’’ published in 1959.
In that volume, Walt said, Dr. Waltz ‘‘essentially came up with a scheme for organizing several centuries of writing about the causes of war.’’ (Besides his academic research, Dr. Waltz had personal knowledge of the subject, having served in the US Army in World War II and the Korean War.)
Did he ever mention the false flag, because none of my instructors ever did?
Another celebrated work was ‘‘Theory of International Politics’’ (1979). That text, building on Dr. Waltz’s earlier work, outlined his overarching worldview. He was identified as a proponent of realism, a school of thought often associated with international relations scholar Hans Morgenthau and argued that states had no choice but to make security and survival their top concerns.
Maybe he was in one of the books. I'll check.
Outside academia, Dr. Waltz drew the greatest attention for his ideas on nuclear weapons. In 1981, he published a paper titled ‘‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better.’’ He argued essentially that the ‘‘measured spread’’ of nuclear weapons would force states that wield them to behave responsibly. The weapons would be a stabilizing deterrent, Dr. Waltz posited, and make wars harder to spark....
Only in certain hands we are told.
He advanced this theory throughout his career and was the coauthor, with scholar Scott Sagan, of ‘‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate’’ (1995). Last year, Foreign Affairs published Dr. Waltz’s article ‘‘Why Iran Should Get the Bomb.’’
Now I'm curious about the timing of the death, although I realize 88-year-old guys die.
‘‘Most US, European, and Israeli commentators and policymakers warn that a nuclear-armed Iran would be the worst possible outcome of the current standoff,’’ he wrote. ‘‘In fact, it would probably be the best possible result, the one most likely to restore stability to the Middle East.’’
You see why I call it the EUSraeli empire, and how he must have mad certain people mad with that lucid commentary!
Dr. Waltz’s critics argued that he fell prey to excessive optimism, such as when he cited Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy as an apparently irrational leader who could, in fact, be reasoned with. ‘‘This is the kind of faith in reason that gives rationalism a bad name,’’ writer Leon Wieseltier argued in the New Republic last year....
Well, Khadafy was reasoned with by the Bush administration -- and it wasn't until he flipped the finger to the international bankers that Obama had to obliterate him and his country.
Kenneth Neal Waltz was born in Ann Arbor, Mich. Neither of his parents graduated from high school, he recalled in an interview with Cal.
Dr. Waltz came to international relations somewhat circuitously, after pursuing interests in drama, literature, and mathematics. He studied math and economics at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he received a bachelor’s degree, and studied economics at Columbia University, where he ultimately received a doctorate in political science in 1954.
After his military service in the Pacific during World War II, Dr. Waltz remained in the Army Reserve and was recalled for duty in Korea, said Rapp-Hooper. He was described as an early critic of US involvement in Indochina during the Vietnam War. Decades later, he spoke out against President George W. Bush and the handling of the Iraq war....
(Applause as music ends)
--more--"
