CIAO DATE: 9/01

From CIAO's Board: Commentary on the Terrorist Attacks against the United States

Robert Keohane
September 2001

Duke University


Dear all,

I don't know what Helen means by my “hopes.” I’m pretty pessimistic. My point is simple: as in the Gulf War, we gain legitimacy for our military action by getting Security Council endorsement. That's pretty basic IR, I thought, consistent with Realism (look at Morgenthau) as well as with Institutionalism. No fancy theory here; just Inis Claude’s collective legitimation (1967). My original letter made it a little more plain that we should only go to the UN if we had ascertained that we would get a Security Council resolution. In view of the fear of Russia and China of Islamic fundamentalism, my guess is that we could.

I appreciate Steph’s recognition that his comment on my short letter was “unfair.” I certainly do not see the UN as central to the fight, any more than it was central to Korea or the Gulf. But it was important in Korea and the Gulf, in both cases helpful to the US cause; in 1950 or 1990 only a negligent statesman would have overlooked that marginal but significant advantage.

Commentary

Stephen M. Walt
Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Bruce Jentleson
Professor of Public Policy, Duke University
Director, Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy

Response by Etel Solingen
Professor of Political Science
University of California, Irvine

Response by Stephan Haggard
Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
University of California, San Diego
Steven Weber
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley


Robert Keohane
James B. Duke Professor of Political Science
Duke University

Jack Snyder
Robert & Renee Belfer Professor of Political Science
Columbia University

Anders Stephanson
James P. Shenton Associate Professor of the Columbia Core
Columbia University

Stephan Haggard

Stephen M. Walt

Allan Goodman
President
Institute of International Education (IIE)

Helen Milner
Professor of Political Science
Columbia University

Stephan Haggard

Jack Snyder

Steven Weber

Robert Keohane

Response by Stephan Haggard
Response by Robert Keohane
Peter Katzenstein
Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies
Cornell University




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