The New Realism And The Post-cold War Nato

In "The Emerging Structure of International Politics" (International Se(?)urity, Fall 1993), Kenneth Waltz asked, "How can an alliance endure in the absence of a worthy opponent?" Waltz's answer is that "NATO's days are not numbered, but its years are." But after many years, NATO still exists and it seems that there is no reason to suspect its endurance at least at the present time.Why did Waltz draw the wrong conclusion? The first reason is that Waltz does not intend to regard assumptions as realities and he insists that assumptions are neither true nor false. He defines states' behaviors according to rational assumptions but leaves out states' rationalities when he explains and predicts the processes and outcomes of international politics only because the results of states' actions are not consistent with states' rationalities. But not all countries have the same rationalities, at least some countries, especially those countries like the United States that seeks to establish hegemony, do try to control balance politics. Balance politics has powerful effects on American foreign policy and the balance of power after the Second World War is what the United States makes of it Waltz's systemic theory, which is a kind of parsimonious theory, deals in idealizations, and it can't make precise predictions because the realities of international politics do not correspond to idealizations.The second reason is that Waltz's systemic theory is not a theory of prediction but a theory of explanation. Systemic theory does not possess the function of prediction because it only focuses on explanation. How can a theory of explanation make precise predictions about the processes and outcomes of international politics?The third reason is that systemic theory puts emphasis excessively on system and structure but leaves out factors at unit level. Waltz's systemic theory subjectively sets two independent variables, which are the anarchy of international politics and the distribution of capabilities across units, but it does not show the causes of those two variables. What is especially important is that it does not show the causes that lead to the changes of the distribution of capabilities across units. The balance of power does not necessarily result from anarchy, and structural factors, which are...