Originally
posted by
trumper:
Originally
posted by
TAN:
Nah, trumper. You are thinking of introductions to IR and basic political science. Also, there are many competing theories on how to predict state behavior. For instance, are state actions driven by mainly security considerations, strategic considerations, or just power accumulation? It's probably a combination of all three, but some will put more weight on one thing over another.
And then you break it down to security based on perceived (vs realistic) geopolitical realities subject-oriented predictive realities toward economic, energy, social, religious or other blah blah. Yes, I've been there and done that, got the cereal box prize (shoot, I think i'm even technically certified in 2nd track diplomacy amusingly enough). Along the way I realized the reality is that a group of kids could accurately predict future state actions as well as a bunch of academic ir folks. Of course the IR folks would then want to do a whole study regarding this (and they have in some cases) as is the military with their current public participation simulations.
My point was simply that the advanced doesn't trump the basic understanding of situations in IR despite belief to the contrary. I digress. The brains behind the scenes were convinced the white fox (aka Shevardnadze) would easily hold power in Georgia while simultaneously playing the East vs the West (more the US vs Russia and sometimes tossing in EU/China/Turkey/etc). They were wrong. The politics of the pipeline didn't play out as they expected and neither did Russia's eventual decision to launch 'peacekeepers' in the region.
Your overly verbose reply assumes that those educated about the political system are all in conformity OR that, even so, they are always right. If you look at actual science, this isn't the case with many things, although with science it's different, because there are actual scientific laws.
The laws of international politics aren't universal (not even human right!) like scientific laws, so how could they predict everything with complete accuracy (once again, assuming everyone is in complete conformity)?
Here is an example: Predicting the outcome of the uprising in Syria. SOME political theorists believe it will be successful, whilst others believe it won't be. All we can do is make predictions based on currently available - and contested - models.
Anyway, you're confusing "rationale actors" with "realist" theory. Both are not the same. And even realist theory is broken down into different parts, as I mentioned in my above post in competing theories.
Are realist states acting only in the interests of state security and strategic interests? Well, this is probably the most reasonable case, but then it begs the question of US aid to Israel - it is NOT in America's strategic interest to keep funding a country that foments anger amongst its other regional allies. But then you get into the argument about whether or not it IS in America's best interests. Which is the correct answer? It's hard to predict. And that is why political theory is so stratified. That is why you have a hundred different think tanks instead of one.
A layman could posit a theory about something - a layman could posit a scientific theory. That doesn't mean it has much credence in academia though. And it doesn't mean it's applicable to the real world.
Anyway, I don't know why you bash philosophy, which I think was the original point of your post. It definitely has a place in academia and general human though. It lays the foundations for lots of things, although I wouldn't say you could get a decent job from it. :P