Second footnote to the post titled “Calculated Aggression”

State behavior is driven entirely by “narrow calculations about relative power” to borrow from Mearsheimer. Not by human rights and international peace. States will constantly seek to gain more power at the expense of others. Nor is state behavior driven by absolute power. Which makes cooperation between states difficult. If there isn’t just one person taking the whole pie, how do you divide the pie per se? And given that power is relative as opposed to absolute, there are great incentives for states to push and gain power at the expense of others. Structure, with its core organizing principle of anarchy, leads to realist logic among states rather than idealist logic based on human rights and world peace. Which in turn makes permanent and eternal peace unlikely.