Introduction: Lawmaking, Co-operation and Peace

Abstract

Contemporary decision-makers in both the East and the West are faced with a continuing dilemma: while the necessity of avoiding nuclear war impels them towards a broad strategy of mutual co-operation, the need to prevent ‘the other side’ from surreptitiously gaining a significant strategic advantage typically induces a general posture of confrontation. For those observers who recommend a primarily confrontationist stance, historical experience — and especially the record of the period between the two world wars — demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that co-operative strategies towards potential aggressors are not only unproductive but also extremely dangerous. In the view of such self-proclaimed ‘realists’, the idealistic advocates of an overall policy of cooperation are merely fanciful optimists, incapable of furnishing any convincing empirical evidence that co-operation between potential enemies can ever be successful in promoting international peace.