The International State of Nature

               In “Leviathan”, Hobbes asserts that while the formation of society ends the state of nature between individuals, between nations there is no sovereign authority and so the state of nature persists on an international level. On the surface it seemed to make sense, but then I began to wonder whether it is actually the case. Important to Hobbes’ conceptualization of the state of nature on the individual level is the idea that everyone is relatively equal as far as physical and mental strength goes, and that any differences are not “considerable”. It seems to me that on the international level this is not the case. If it was, there would be little necessity to refer to a state as a superpower. The United States has a disproportionate amount of power and influence when compared to other states, and there are a number of other international entities that are looked on as having the potential to ascend to superpower status as well.

States that are or are believed to have the potential to become superpowers in the 21st Century are filled in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_superpowers

 

            Because Hobbes’ formulates his state of nature under the assumption that all individuals are relatively equal, on the international level where we must consider states in place of individuals, if we accept that this assumption is false, we must question whether the state of nature as Hobbes defines it exists on the international level. If international affairs exist in a Hobbesian state of nature, then countries would always act in the interests of their self-preservation. But for many countries, self-preservation is all but assured. There is no threat so large that the very existence of the United States is at stake. Because self-preservation is not an issue, states are able to take interest in humanitarian issues, and many behave in ways that are not necessarily in their own interests but are at least believed to be in the best interests of humanity. This does not mesh well with a Hobbesian state of nature.  

            If international entities do not relate to each other as if they exist in a Hobbesian state of nature, perhaps Locke’s state of nature is more reflective of the current state of international affairs. There is once again the breakdown of an assumption of relative equality, but I feel that Locke’s state of nature is nonetheless somewhat reflective of reality. States are able to basically do as they please, but if they move beyond reason, other countries may take action against them. One only has to recall relatively recent goings-on in Libya to observe this, where various states “judged” the behaviors of Libyan national authorities and took some semblance of action against them. By also taking into account the current situation in Syria, one can also see the problem that Locke anticipates with a state-of-nature judging system, where various states observe the same situation and come to different, contradictory conclusions. Just as Locke suggests happens, these differences threaten to cause the state of nature to regress into a state of war. Obviously there is a state of war already taking place in Syria, but because of the stance of Russia with respect to Syria, were other countries, like Turkey perhaps, to attempt to influence events too much, there would be the possibility of an even larger state of war developing. 

              But Locke asserts that fear of the state of war “is one great reason of men’s putting themselves into society”, and there does not seem to be any movement towards this on the international level. The U.N. never stopped being a thing that there is, but it has little capacity to take action or exert control over many states and cannot be considered the international stage’s answer to national governments. It appears that because the goals and interests of the various “judges” are so different, they usually will not band together in any real way to create a central authority. As a result of the equality assumption failing, the strong are strong enough that the threat of the state of war is not enough to prompt a contract forming between them. The European Union serves as somewhat of a counterexample to this, but although the EU has political institutions built into it, it is more of a monetary union, and calls for more political integration are not universal. Can Locke's state of nature really be said to be descriptive of international affairs if the individual-scale implications of it don't apply to the international scale? Perhaps, but the differences in ways that states relate to each other in comparison to the way people relate to each other without an overriding authority in place suggests to me that there are likely other important differences.

 

            It seems to me that rather than the state of international affairs being precisely one of a state of nature with every state relating to every other state, it is in more of a complex state, where the various states of superpower or near-superpower strength serve to some extent as some kind of authority over their allies and/or closely affiliated countries. Perhaps these loosely affiliated groups are in a state of nature with each other , but because none of these "authorities" have the sort of authoritative strength over  multiple nations that a national government has over itself, the way these groups relate to each other would likely differ significantly from how two completely independent countries would  relate to each other. Any thoughts on this?