ARON by Davis

An Uncertain Trumpet: Reason, Anarchy and Cold War Diplomacy in the Thought of
Raymond Aron
Author(s): Reed Davis
Source: Review of International Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Oct., 2008), pp. 645-668
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Review of InternationalStudies (2008), 34, 645-668 Copyright© British International Studies Association
doiAO.1017/S0260210508008218
An uncertaintrumpet:reason, anarchy and

Cold War diplomacy in the thought of
Raymond Aron
REED DAVIS
Abstract. Near the end of his career, Raymond Aron explained that he had never ceased to
'think or dream or hope - in the light of the idea of Reason - for a humanized society', a hope
that extended to the conduct of international affairs as well. The purpose of this essay is to
examine how Aron's liberalism manifested itself in his theorising about international relations
and in some of his less abstract diplomatic recommendations. In tracing the effects of Aron's
fundamental theoretical commitments on his more concrete policy analyses, we examine how
Aron's liberalism affected his approach to two of the most contentious issues in French foreign
policy, namely, the decolonisation of Algeria and the creation of the force defrappe, France's
nuclear weapons programme. We argue that the tensions and contradictions in Aron's foreign
policy prescriptions have their origins in his ambivalence over the source and character of
human reason.
Introduction
There is in Kant',RaymondAron declaredin an interviewlate in his life, 'a thought

to whichI still subscribe:it is the idea of reason,an imageof a societythat wouldbe
trulyhumanized'.Despite the senselessturmoilof the twentiethcentury,Aron said,
he neverceased'to think, or dreamor hope - in the light of the idea of reason- for
a humanizedsociety'.1This hope stretchedbeyond the governanceof domestic
societyand extendedto the conductof foreignaffairsas well. As Aron explainedit,
the terriblepossibilitiesof nuclearwar 'havegiventhe rejectionof powerpoliticsnot
only an actualityand an urgency,but a kind of obviousness'.2All men and women
'aspireto a historicaltransformationof states and their relations',Aron declared,
adding,'I do not protestthese sentiments,I sharethem'.3
Although Aron is conventionallyplaced in what Alberto Coll has termed 'the
prudencetradition',4or that traditionwhichsees conflictas an ineluctablefeatureof
1
Raymond Aron, The Committed Observer:Interviews with Jean-Louis Missika and Dominique
Wolton, trans. James and Marie Macintosh (Chicago, IL: Regnery Gateway, 1983), p. 267.
2
Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, trans. Richard Howard and
Annette Baker Fox (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), p. 703.
3
Aron, Peace and War, p. 703.
4 For a discussion of the
prudence tradition, see Alberto Coll, 'Prudence and Foreign Policy , in
Michael Cromartie (ed.), Might and Right After the Cold War: Can Foreign Policy Be MoraP.
(Lanham, MD: National Book Network, 1993). For a discussion of Aron's place in that tradition,
645

646 Reed Davis
international relations, Aron repeatedly insisted that progress in international affairs

was possible and that conflict among states may someday disappear. After witnessing
the worst that the twentieth century had to offer - the Great Depression, two World
Wars -Aron admitted to a strain of realism but one leaved with a substantial
measure of optimism. In the wake of the Second World War, Aron wrote, 'I ceased
to believe that history always obeys the imperative of reason or the wishes of men of
good will. I lost faith [but] not without effort, kept hope.'5
The purpose of this article is to assess the effects that Aron's "politicsof reason' had
on his approach to international relations theory and to Cold War diplomacy. By a
"politicsof reason', I mean, most simply, Aron's efforts to pull reason and political
necessity into the same loose orbit in the hopes that reason, over time, would work to
transform the international order. What we are here calling a politics of reason
comports ratherwell with what Michael Doyle calls a 'liberal'approach to international
relations. Declaring that there is no 'canonical description'of liberalism,Doyle explains
that liberalismgenerallyassumes that world politics 'is at the minimuma heterogeneous
state of peace and war and might become a state of global peace, in which the
expectation of war disappears'.6 Aron's liberalism, then, like liberalism in general,
believes that world politics has the potential to be remade in the image of reason.
Aron's liberalism, however, was a heavily qualified one. Unlike most liberals,
Aron grounded his theory of international relations in one of the foundational
premises of realism, namely, the idea that all international relations takes place in the
shadow of war.7 As we will see, the central analytical construct in Aron's theory of
international relations is the diplomat-soldier, a construct that underscores the
fundamental fact of anarchy for Aron. Nevertheless, unlike most realists, Aron
refused to insist that international anarchy is a permanent feature of world politics;
he clearly and consistently allowed for the possibility that reason may someday
transform the state of war into a state of peace.
Aron's nascent realism accounts not only for a certain measure of scepticism in his
thinking but for a striking restlessness as well. By attempting to bring reason and
necessity into striking distance of one another, Aron tried to create a theory of
international relations that could present a fuller, more accurate representation of
political reality. However, in trying to hold the middle ground between an abstract
idealism, one that stretches normative ideas beyond any prudent regard for the
contingencies of existence, and a narrow realism, or one which denies that general
ideas should play any role in forming judgment, Aron set in motion a method of
reasoning that made it difficult for him to reach many firm or settled conclusions.
The central difficulty of Aron's approach concerns the erratic and unsteady course
of its idealistic impulse. In seeking to apply a formalised ethic to political realities,
Aron's idealism often overshot its mark and threatened to dissolve the very structural
or historical necessities he relied on to justify a politics of moderate and prudent
reform. Although he acknowledged the importance of power in diplomacy and
see Brian C. Anderson, Raymond Aron and the Recovery of the Political (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1997), pp. 130-8.
5
Aron, The Committed Observer,p. 266.
6 Michael
Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: W. W.
Norton, p. 210.
7 For a 1997), definition
working of realism, see Doyle, Ways of War and Peace, 'The Range of Realism',
pp. 41-8.

Reason, anarchy and Cold War diplomacy in Raymond Aron 647
statecraft, for example, Aron refrained from urging a policy predicated on the
national interest. Instead, he argued that the West must come to stand for something,
both abroad and at home, especially if the West expected to prevail in the Cold War.
As we will see, this not only made for a confusing set of policy prescriptions, it made
Aron vulnerable to a peculiar kind of political immoderation which, for all of his
ingrained prudence, got the best of his better judgment from time to time. In sum, we
maintain that for all of his reflexive prudence and moderation, Aron found it easier
to imagine a politics of reason than to call one into existence.
This article is divided into three parts. Because Aron created what he called 'a
science for the politician and a politics based on science', the first section of this essay
maps out the contours of Aron's theory of knowledge, an indispensable moment in
any social science, especially one intended to be of benefit to politicians. As we will
see, Aron here hedged a bit when placing his 'wager on reason', to borrow Stanley
Hoffmann's suggestive phrase. Consequently, what started as a bold effort to view
history and historical knowledge in the round ended in hesitation and ambivalence.
The second section connects Aron's theory of knowledge to his two great theoretical
masterpieces, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations and Clausewitz:
Philosopher of War* We here show how the uncertainties and inconsistencies at the
heart of Aron's theory of knowledge emerged to plague his theoretical treatment of
international relations and military strategy. The third traces the connections
between these theoretical works and Aron's policy recommendations regarding two
of the most contentious issues in postwar French politics, namely, the decolonisation
of Algeria and the creation of the 'force de frappe', France's nuclear arms
programme. Once again, we will see that the peculiar ambivalence that marks so
much of Aron's more theoretical work reverberated down the ladder of abstraction
to mark his more practical, policy-oriented writings as well.
Although Aron's emphasis on reason makes his philosophy more ethically
appealing than the views of realists like Max Weber (a thinker for whom Aron had
immense admiration) the peculiar manner in which Aron brought reason to bear on
anarchy contributes to the confusion and ambiguity in much of his writing. In order
to escape from the morally discouraging implications of political realism, Aron
insisted on the existence of a realm of perfect freedom, or a world devoid of the
contaminating effects of political necessity and hence knowable only by pure reason.
At the same time, Aron tried to procure an accord between historical necessity and
moral freedom so that morality can operate within history and even change it. The
connecting points that Aron attempted to create between reason and necessity,
however, were attached by a rather unwieldy logic, one that understood reason and
necessity to be simultaneously independent of and limited by historical necessity. This
is the reason for the restless two-sidedness of so much of Aron's thinking. Despite
Aron's almost monstrous erudition and his elaborate and sophisticated conceptual
schemas, his hesitations and ambivalence have driven many commentators to ask:
Exactly what has Aron said, anyway?9 'Often and in a quasi-ritualistic way', Pierre
8
Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, trans, by Richard Howard
and Annette Baker Fox (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1962). Raymond Aron,
Clausewitz: Philosopher of War, trans. Christine Booker and Norman Stone (London, Melbourne:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983).
9 See David Thomson, The Three Worlds of Raymond Aron7, International Affairs, 5? ^eoruary,
1963), pp. 49-58. See also Stanley Hoffmann, 'Minerva and Janus', in The State of War: Essays on
the Theory and Practice of International Relations, ed. Stanley Hoffmann (London: Pall Mall Press,

648 ReedDavis
Hassnerhas written of Aron, 'the idea of reason intervenes,that of a reconciled

humanity,an idea that must neverbe abandonedbut neverknows its full incarna-
tion'. Unfortunately,Hassnerconcluded,'thismakesone thinkof the "meagerblack
and gold" of Valery;its content is vague and its philosophicalstatus . . . seems
vulnerableto the criticisms to which the idea of indefiniteprogress has been
submittedfrom Hegel to Strauss'.10
Despite these shortcomings,Aron's work is still worth miningnot only for what
it can teachus about the never-endingeffortto reconcileidealismand realismbut for
what it can teach us about the history of internationalrelationsas well. As Brian
Schmidthas pointed out, the field of internationalrelationsas it emergedduring
the interwarperiod is conventionallyportrayedas a Great Debate between two
well-definedand mutuallyexclusivecamps,namely,idealistsand realists.11 Fromthis
rather 'dichotomized'perspective,the history of the discipline of international
relationsis the recordof the steadyvictoryof realismover idealism,a victorymade
all but inevitableby the collapseof the Leagueof Nations and the onset of World
WarTwo. Aron'swork,however,standsas a correctiveto this line of interpretation.
As we will see, Aron'stheoryof internationalrelations,whichcan be directlytraced
to his pre-warstudy of the philosophyof history,triedto establishconnectionsand
continuitiesbetween realism and idealism;whatevercriticismsAron directed at
idealismduringthe interwaryearswerenot meantto repudiateor vanquishidealism
but simplyto tempersome of its featuresin orderto clear some space for realism.
However,as we will showin the concludingsectionof thisessay,the mannerin which
Aronbroughtreasonto bearon politicaljudgmentdifferedsignificantlyfromthe way
in which some of the Americanrealists- particularlyHans Morgenthau- did so.
In reconstructingthe logic that governed Aron's thinking, we begin with his
epistemology,conventionallyregardedas 'the deepestform of overt assumption'.It
is therethat we firstsee the dialecticallogic that stampsall of Aron'slaterreflections
with its peculiarcast.
The foundationsof historicalknowledge
Aron'stheoryof knowledgeis presentedin his doctoraldissertation,Introductionto

the Philosophyof History.12Scouringearly twentiethcenturyGermansocial theory
for an epistemology that could both explain and guide human action, Aron
eventuallydevelopedan original dialecticallogic of his own driven by the polar
energiesof Max Weber'sneo-Kantianismand EdmundHusserl'sphenomenology.13
1965), and Stanley Hoffmann, The Sword and the Pen', The New Republic (4 November 1985),
p. 39.
10 Pierre
Hassner, 'Raymond Aron and the History of the Twentieth Century', International Studies
Quarterly, 29 (Spring, 1985), p. 36.
Brian C. Schmidt, The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International
Relations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), esp. ch. 6, 'International
Organization and International Polities'.
12
Raymond Aron, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, trans. George Irwin (Boston, MA:
Beacon Press, 1961).
13 See Reed
Davis, The Phenomenology of Raymond Aron', The European Journal of Political Theory
(2004).

Aron set for himself the rather monumental task of understanding just how
knowledge of the past is possible. He began by introspectively analysing how it is that
an individual mind understands its own past. Observing that one can never resurrect
even a fragment of the past in all its fullness, Aron underscored the existence of an
'unbridgeable gap' between the memory of a decision and the moment of a decision,
a difference which suggested to Aron that the past can never be completely relived.
'Even if every nuance of a past episode were somehow conveyed to our present
consciousness', Aron argued, 'this miracle of resurrection would again make
knowledge in the proper sense useless, for we would again be the same self we had
been'.14
Because one's own past cannot be relived, it must be reconstructed. In Aron's
opinion, there are two ways in which one may reconstruct one's own past. The first
is to rediscover the intentions (which Aron termed 'motifs') that motivated an action,
while the second is to retrace 'states of consciousness' (which Aron termed 'mobiles')
in order to discover the psychological antecedents or the 'causes' of those intentions.
Both approaches are legitimate, Aron argued, but considered individually, each fails
to account for a part of reality. The crucial point, however, is this: even when taken
together, both dimensions are equally parts of a whole, the totality of which exceeds
the sum of its parts. Aron argues that in the end, self-knowledge, 'attains neither the
whole nor the unity - or at least our self is a constructed unity situated in infinity, like
the unity of all objects'. Thus, in taking stock of our past, '[w]e perceive a series of
inclinations which are ours: the self would be the fictive source of them'. In the end,
however, 'the more we extend our inquiry, the closer we get to the totality without
ever reaching it'.15
Because the essence of all things, including human beings, is located at a point
situated in infinity, there is a 'gap' or a 'break' between the intentional and the
psychological dimensions of behaviour that guarantees the irreducibilityof one to the
other. There is at the same time, however, a marked degree of interaction between
the two. All self-knowledge, Aron declared, implies a certain idea of oneself. 'And
this idea is animated by certain assertions of value. Even those who claim to discover
themselves passively choose themselves.' In other words, 'knowledge of self develops
according to a dialectic: between an ever-incomplete discovery and a never-
triumphant decision, the individual defines himself by a double effort at lucidity and
creation. Always menaced by Pharisaism or resignation, he can relax neither of the
two tensions.'16
And here we reach the heart of the matter. By describing the knowledge of self as
dialectical, Aron serves notice that at the centre of the scientific knowledge of human
action - which is simply a form of self-knowledge writ large - lies the problem of the
hermeneutical circle: '[O]ne's idea of his past is dependent on the manner in which
that past determines his present . . . but, in our consciousness, our past depends on
our present'.17The upshot of this introspective exercise is that all knowledge is in
some measure 'tied in with the intention of the spectator'.18
14
Aron, Introductionto the Philosophy of History, p. 51.
15
Ibid., p. 56.
16
Ibid., p. 56
17
Ibid., p. 55.
18
Ibid., p. 55

650 ReedDavis
Is this to say that all knowledgeis subjectiveand hencerelative?Not exactly.Here

Aron injectsa crucialcaveat:
Thispluralityof images,varyingwiththeobserver, willno doubtbe admittedas evidentde
factobutparadoxical dejure.Howcanit be deniedthatthereexistsa reality,and
consequently a trueideaof eachperson?Andyet,we shouldliketo upholdtheparadox.
Weknowtheessentialcharacter of an individual
no morethanwe understand theultimate
intentionof an act.19
The structureand logic of self-knowledgearenow complete.Aron presentsthe self
as a unifiedwhole within which two contrastingelements- the intentionaland the
psychological- emergefrom a common, unknowablesource.The relationbetween
these two modes of humanexperienceis ambiguousand complex:the will does not
createitself ex nihilobut 'emergesgraduallyfrom the processof experiencewhichit
is capable of influencingbecause it is the expressionof it as well as the judge'.20
Intentionalityis at one and the same time conditioned by and independentof
psychologicalor causalfactors,a state of affairswhichsuggeststhat self-knowledge
culminatesin the discoveryof a riddleor a paradoxthat reasoncan recognisebut
neverresolve.
It is there,in the doubleimpulsebetweenautonomyand necessity,that we see the
sourceof the restlessambivalencethat marksso muchof Aron'sthinking.Although
Aron never waveredin his convictionthat reason must respectthe constraintsof
necessity,he neversquaredthat convictionwith his equallyfirmcommitmentto the
autonomyof reason.For Aron, an act of historical'understanding' is nevera strictly
rationaloperationwherebyreason'grasps'its objectsin an impartialor mechanical
way. By virtue of its inherentfreedomand autonomy,understandingis always a
practicalor protectiveexercisethat 'shapes'the objectsof experiencein the act of
knowing them. Although Aron repeatedlyemphasisedthe independentstatus of
historicalobjects,his commitmentto the Kantiannotion of regulatoryideassuggests
that these objectsdo not possessan actualor ontic independencebut only a believed
one. In other words, the real existenceof these objectsseems to be reducedto the
hope that they do in fact exist.AlthoughAron was surelycorrectin maintainingthat
Marx'simpersonalview of knowledgeleads to a world without humanbeings,his
own epistemologyruns the risk of leaving men and women without a world, an
unhappyoutcomethat is particularlyregrettablein a philosophydeterminedto give
externalnecessityits due.
Declaringthat reasonand necessityconnect 'at a point in infinity'only begs the
question. How does this abstractpropositionbear on practicalmatters,especially
statecraft?What does it mean for concretepoliticalchoice?
Peace and War
Aron's philosophy of historical knowledge affected his theory of international

relationsin two ways. First,it affectedhis conceptualoutline.LikeIntroduction
to the
Philosophyof History,Peace and Waris brokendown into four sections.As Aron
19
Aron, p. 68.
20
Ibid., p. 57.

explained it, his theory of international relations would unfold exactly like his
philosophy of historical knowledge. That is, he would proceed 'from formal theory,
to the determination of causes, and then to the analysis of a specific set of
circumstances . . .'21There is also a fourth section in Peace and War, 'Praxeology',
which is an extended normative meditation on the moral foundations of statecraft,
just as there is a fourth section in the Introduction,Truth and History', where Aron
expounds on the moral foundations of historical knowledge.
Second, beyond this broad, schematic connection, Aron's philosophy of historical
knowledge profoundly affected the manner in which he approached the nature and
logic of 'diplomatic-strategic behavior', the key moment in Aron's theory of
international relations. At the outset of Peace and War, Aron explained that
'Interstate actions are expressed in and by specific actions, those of individuals I shall
call symbolic, the diplomat and the soldier'.22The existence of other states confronts
all statesmen with a fundamental and intractable fact of necessity: international
relations 'starts from the plurality of autonomous centres of decision, hence the risk
of war, and from this risk it deduces the necessary calculation of means'.23Hence the
importance of the 'soldier' in Aron's schema. However, the nature of international
relations is not exhausted by the facts of necessity. States also pursue a variety of
irreducible ends or purposes, intentional realities that transcend the struggle for
power; hence the importance of the 'diplomat'.
It should be noted that in Aron's view, theories of international relations must
recognise that there are elements of cooperation as well as conflict that mark relations
between and among states. Although Aron's theory of international relations begins
from Weber's premise that international political action is zweckrationalaction - that
-
is, it involves a rational calculation of means to achieve a given end Aron did not
accept Weber's premise that the ends or the purposes that states pursued were
ultimately incompatible. Even though states must count on no one else but
themselves in order to survive, Aron argued, each state 'also had - or should have
had - to contribute to the task common even to enemy cities, exposed to the risk of
perishing together by dint of constantly fighting each other',24a most un-Weberian
conclusion.
In short, the logic of the central construct in Peace and War is lifted directly from
the logic of the central concept of the Introductionto the Philosophy of History. Aron
presents us with a model of human action that includes an intentional dimension as
well as a necessary one, a model of human behaviour, that is, comprising both motifs
and mobiles.
Because there is no universal or self-evident end of action in the international
arena, Aron announced that his theory does not purport to predict much. What,
then, does it do? The theory that he is here outlining, Aron argued, simply attempts
to grasp 'the meaning of diplomatic behavior, to trace its fundamental notions, to
specify the variables that must be reviewed in order to understand any one
constellation' of political power.25 At best, his theory of international relations
simply attempted to make political action intelligible. Unlike Morgenthau's theory of
21
Aron, Peace and War, pp. 3-4.
22
Ibid., p. 5.
23
Ibid., p. 16.
24
Ibid., p. 17.
25
Ibid., p. 93.

652 Reed Davis
international relations, Aron's theory does not 'suggest an "eternal diplomacy" ' and
does not construct 'a closed system'.26Aron intended to present his readers not with
a seamless web of predictable behaviours but with a series of scenarios that, as Aron
put it, 'shows both the limits of our knowledge and the conditions of historical
choices'.27Aron's theory of international relations, in other words, underscored not
the predictability but the complexity of action.
This had two consequences for Aron's approach to diplomacy and statecraft.
First, underscoring the complexity of action served to illustrate the importance of
moderation and restraint in the international arena. Because knowledge is necessarily
limited, a politics of moderation, or a politics dedicated to maintaining some sort of
balance of power, is the most advisable. Second, the complexity of human affairs
means that action cannot be reduced to the relatively simple calculation of
self-interest. Because Aron believed that human action is governed, at least partly, by
the ideas people have of themselves, he refused to treat the Cold War simply as a
traditional great power conflict. To Aron's way of thinking, the US and its allies were
locked in a struggle driven as much by ideology as by power and ambition. For that
reason, Aron dismissed as doubly damned any theory of international relations
predicated exclusively on the concept of the national interest. Theories that reduced
international politics to a struggle for power failed to account not only for the
different historical objectives of states but for the possibility of elevating statecraft
above the grim, self-defeating imperatives of realpolitik as well.
These propositions immediately differentiate Aron's theory of international
relations from Hans Morgenthau's. Beginning from the premise that 'politics, like
society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their root in human
nature', Morgenthau argued that political improvement rests on our ability 'to
understand the laws by which society lives'. Because the operation of these laws 'is
impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure'.
Realism, Morgenthau insisted, 'believing as it does in the objectivity of laws and
politics, must also believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that
reflects however imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws'. And this theory,
Morgenthau concluded, reveals that statesmen are everywhere and always compelled
to 'think and act in terms of power'.28
Aron will have none of this. His neo-Kantian insistence that theoretical thought
cannot grasp the essence of anything compelled him to reject talk of a human
'nature'. Because the power of abstract reasoning does not extend to the discovery of
essential unity, conceptualisation cannot penetrate to what philosophers have
commonly referred to as 'the thing itself. So limited, theoretical thought discovers
only opposites-in-relation, or pairs of logical antitheses bound together by an
unknowable substance. Aron, for example, did not define the self by referringto one
fundamental property such as the will-to-power or self-interest but by postulating a
dialectical relation between two properties, 'motifs' and 'mobiles'.
From this all else follows. If theoretical thought is incapable of disclosing a stable,
invariant object of analysis, then the concomitant notion of 'objective laws' becomes
problematic. Although Aron did not dismiss Morgenthau's search for theoretical
26
Ibid., p. 93.
"
Ibid., 4.
z* Hans p.
Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred
Knopf, 1978), p. 4.

order (or what Aron termed 'rational schematics') as wrongheaded, he did regard it
as insufficient. Given the indeterminacy of human action - given, in other words, the
dialectical relation between mobiles and motifs - political behaviour can never take
its bearings from a rational assessment of the national interest, as Morgenthau
insisted it should.
To what, then, does foreign policy look? In Peace and War, Aron argued that
statecraft should be guided, above all else, by the virtue of 'prudence'. The prudent
statesman, Aron explained, is one who acts:
in accordance with the particular situation and the concrete data, and not in accordance
with some system or out of obedience to some pseudo-norm; it is to prefer the limitation of
violence to the punishment of the presumably guilty party to so-called absolute justice; it is
to establish concrete accessible objectives conforming to the secular law of international
relations and not to limitless and perhaps meaningless objectives, such as 'a world safe for
democracy' or 'a world from which power politics have disappeared'.29
Because international relations 'is a mixture [of morality and power] that can be
understood only in its ambiguous complexity', prudence must somehow attach
morality and self-interest to the same political harness. Indeed, Aron argued in a later
work that 'any judgment about an external action is inseparable from a judgment
about the internal system -that is, a state's institutions - and the imperial role
appears beneficent or odious depending on whether armies bring with them freedom
or tyranny . . .'. By this criterion, American diplomacy in Europe must be reckoned
a success 'not only because it contained communism, but because it promoted
progress and human liberty'.30
At first glance, this seems to echo Morgenthau's approach to prudence.
Morgenthau, like Aron, insisted that even when advancing or protecting the
national interest, statecraft must somehow reckon with transcendent principles and
moral imperatives. At the close of Scientific Man vs Power Politics, for example,
Morgenthau cited with evident approval Burke's dictum that 'A statesman, never
losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances . . .'.31Nevertheless, both
thinkers approach the challenge of reconciling principles and power from different
starting points. As one of Morgenthau's commentators has observed, even while
acknowledging the existence of a transcendent frame of reference, Morgenthau
consistently maintained that 'moral principles must be derived from political practice
and not imposed on it . . .'.32Aron, however, tended to the opposite view. 'Even in
the relations between states', he declared, 'respect for ideas, aspiration to higher
values and concern for obligations have been manifested'.33For these reasons, Aron
was perhaps quicker than Morgenthau to judge the accomplishments of statecraft not
only by the light of the national interest but by the light of an independent moral
standard as well, as evidenced in the above quote regarding American foreign policy
success in Europe. Although both Aron and Morgenthau believed that responsible,
29
30
Raymond Aron, The Imperial Republic, trans. Frank Jellinek (bnglewood Clitts, NJ: rrentice-Haii,
1974), p. xx. . _ _
31 Hans
Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago, IL: University ot Chicago iress,
1946), pp. 220-1. Emphasis added.
32
Greg Russell, Hans Morgenthau and the Ethics of American Statecraft (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana
State University Press, 1990),p. 164.
33

654 Reed Davis
prudent statecraft had to attend to the reconciliation of power and principle, then,
both seemed to place the accent on different syllables in doing so.
During the Cold War, Aron believed that a policy of prudence meant that the
West should be committed to a policy of anti-communist containment. Much like
George Kennan, the Director of President Truman's Policy Planning Staff and the
architect of containment, Aron believed that the main element of American foreign
policy toward the Soviet Union must be, in Kennan's words, 'a long-term, patient but
firm and vigilant containment of Russia's expansive tendencies'. However, unlike
Kennan, Aron believed that because the Soviet Union's behaviour was driven as
much by ideology as it was by the calculation of interest - 'each is alternately a means
and an end with respect to one another' - the Soviet Union was as much a moral
threat to the West as it was a political one. In other words, the challenge that the
Soviet Union presented to the West was so immense that traditional geostrategic
calculations could not apply.
This understanding of the struggle between East and West prompted Aron to
make two specific policy proposals. First, given the apocalyptic character of
Marxism, it was absolutely imperative for the West to maintain a strict military
balance with the Soviets at all military levels, from conventional forces to nuclear
weaponry. Should the Soviet regime become convinced that it holds an uncontestable
superiority, Aron argued, 'the danger would become fatal; the Kremlin leaders would
feel that the time for the final struggle had come, or more probably, they would press
their adversary to the point of forcing the West to choose between capitulation and
war'.34
Second, Aron believed that it was absolutely imperative that the US protect and
strengthen Western Europe. In fact, as long as Europe was secure, Aron maintained,
the US could afford to respond to losses and reversals in the Third World with
something approaching a shrug of indifference. Instead of believing that American
security was endangered 'each time "Ruritania" declares its allegiance to Moscow, it
would be better to show detachment . . . too expose in advance the Communist
blackmail to which incompetent rulers are too frequently prone, wrongly convinced
that Americans would be damaged more than themselves by a victory for Moscow'.
Rarely are these losses decisive, Aron added: '[W]e should remember on every
occasion that the relation of military forces in our age is not seriously affected by the
vicissitudes of the Cold War'.35This does not mean that American statesmen could
freely ignore political developments in Asia or Africa; in fact, Aron urged the West
to step up its developmental assistance for those regimes threatened by Communist
insurgency movements. It does mean, however, that in the event that these efforts
should fail - and in some cases, Aron hastened to point out, they most certainly
would - that statesmen should never panic.
While reading through Aron's magisterial study, one senses that for all of its
ponderous abstractness, Peace and War was written primarily for American states-
men as they tried to steer the US through the turbulent waters of the 1960s and 70s.
Some thirty-five years after its appearance, however, it is apparent that Aron's pleas
for a moderate and measured politics fell largely on deaf ears. The two precepts at the
heart of his geostrategic recommendations - a certain sense of detachment or
34
Ibid., p. 691.
35
Ibid., p. 696.

indifference towards communist insurgency movements and a commitment to

maintaining the military balance at all levels - were systematically ignored or violated
by American statesmen, the first in the 1960s and the second in the 1970s.
Perhaps the reason that Peace and War found so little support among members of
the American foreign policy establishment is that Aron never considered what
exercises in prudential judgment would do to the moral foundations of his foreign
policy or to public support for it. 'After all', one scholar has written in this context,
'could Johnson have refused to intervene in Vietnam and still preserved the Cold War
consensus that had legitimated containment? And hadn't Eisenhower's "prudent"
decision in 1954 merely laid the entire problem in Kennedy's lap?'36 It was the
Kennedy administration, in fact, that felt the full force of this dilemma. John Gaddis
has forcefully described this difficulty. President Kennedy and his advisors, Gaddis
wrote:
werecontinuallytorn betweenurgesto arouseand educate.Therewas, on the one hand,
the beliefthat Eisenhowerhad not made the nation face up to the threatsconfrontingit;
that the new administrationhad a duty, accordingly,to awakenthe country- shock it if
necessary- out of its complacency.On the otherhand, therewas a comparablesense of
obligationto persuadethe publicto take a calmerand more rationalview of the Cold War,
to abandonthe passionsand oversimplifications characteristicof the earlyyearsof that
conflict.TheseconflictingimpulsescoloredKennedy'spublicexplanationof his strategy
throughouthis termin office.37
The same conflicting impulses colored Aron's public explanations as well. Despite
his condemnation of strident Cold War rhetoric, especially Kennedy's impassioned
promise to defend 'the frontiers of freedom' everywhere, Aron could not resist
conjuring up images of falling dominoes in his effort to goad the United States into
accepting its global responsibilities ('Is it of no consequence to the American republic
that the African states are falling one after the other into the Soviet orbit?').38Indeed,
given his enthusiasm for a massive, across-the-board increase in military strength,
Aron's complaints about the Kennedy administration are a little surprising. How else
can an administration convince the public to make the sacrifices necessary to sustain
such a buildup save by persuading it that the nation stands in imminent peril?
Similarly, his criticism of the American conviction that the United States would
jeopardise its role throughout the world if it accepted defeat anywhere rings hollow
and for the same reason. If the Communist threat is of such scope and magnitude that
the traditional maxims of statecraft no longer apply -if, in other words, the
Communist threat is as much moral and ideological as it is geopolitical - then how
can even a tactical withdrawal be construed as anything other than a major defeat?
How could the US appear to retreat from its admittedly overextended positions
without triggering a crisis of confidence?
This is the dilemma that haunts any effort to arm power politics with moral
purpose. Those who judge politics by the light of an abstract ideal are driven to feel
an ever-increasing sense of responsibility for the conditions under which those ideals
36 Richard Melanson, 'Paul H. Nitze to Norman Podhoretz: The Tradition of Anti-Communist

Containment', in Traditionsand Values: American Diplomacy, 1945 to the Present',Kenneth W.
Thompson (ed.) (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), p. 166.
37 John Gaddis,
Strategies of Containment:A Critical Appraisal oj Postwar American National Security
Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 232.
38
Raymond Aron, Les Dernieres annees du siecle (Paris: Julhard Commentaire, 1983), p. 184.

656 Reed Dans
can be realised. As Kenneth W. Thompson has argued, 'humanity has been endlessly
prompted by conscience and insight to visions of perpetual peace . . . [S]uch a vision,
[however], can be kept alive only when permitted to overreach itself.39 Although
Aron repeatedly emphasised that the universal values which guide our actions and
policies are purely formal realities that may never be realised, his policy of
anti-communist containment generated an almost irresistible tendency toward indis-
criminate intervention because it implied that the West, particularly the US, had a
moral obligation to spread - and not just protect - liberal democratic values.40
The problems with this sort of idealistic or 'visionary' statecraft are again evident
in Aron's approach to one of the bitterest and most difficult issues in postwar French
politics, namely, Algeria. Here, too, we see Aron pulled in different directions by the
countervailing forces of his categorial framework.
Although Aron's monumental book, the Opium of the Intellectuals, branded him
as something of a sceptic, one wary of grand national designs, the spectre of a France
given over to the demands of industrial necessity and to 'mediocrity and skepticism'
nagged even Aron from time to time.41Consequently, in pleading for his countrymen
to commit themselves to liberal democracy, Aron attempted to infuse French
democracy with a bracing measure of idealism and moral purpose. In Europe, Aron
wrote immediately after the war, 'the scale of greatness remains that of the national
states. Always of the second rank when compared to the colosses [of the Soviet Union
and the United States], France will recover a radiance and an influence of the first
rank on the condition that, by its interior stability and its prosperity, it creates a
political and spiritual center around which will gather the smaller nations'.42 This
stirring, almost breathless description of the future - which calls to mind Victor
Duruy's ringing declaration that 'France is the moral center of the world'43- is a
rather familiar call to French grandeur. 'A great nation lives and prospers', Aron
declared, 'only by the constant and mysterious inspiration of a great idea', or by what
Aron termed 'a task' (un projet). Here we approach what Aron insisted was not
simply the decisive question of postwar reconstruction but the only question of
postwar reconstruction, namely, did France have such a task? Indeed it did: 'The
French idea', Aron declared, 'is to protect what is human at an hour when all
conspire to deliver society to the inhumanity of enslaved masses and the pyramids of
steel'.44
The call to national greatness or grandeur is a familiar one in French history.45To
many French leaders and intellectuals, grandeur elevated national life above the
Gradgrind necessities of industrial society and infused it with a measure of purpose
39 Kenneth W.
Thompson, The Political Philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr', in Reinhold Niebuhr: His
Religious, Social and Political Thought, ed. C. Kegley and R. Bretall (New York: Macmillan, 1956),
p. 244.
40 Brian Anderson holds a more charitable view of
Aron's success on this score. See Brian Anderson,
Raymond Aron and the Recovery of the Political, pp. 50-2.
41
Raymond Aron, Opium of the Intellectuals, trans. Terence Kilmartin (London: Seeker and Warburg,
1957).
42
Raymond Aron, L'Age des empires et I'avenirde la France (Paris: Editions Defense de la France,
1946), p. 47.
43 Cited in
Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956 (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1992), p. 239.
44
Aron, L'Age des empires, p. 47.
See Daniel J. Mahoney, De Gaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeurand Modern Democracy (Westport:
Praeger, 1996), pp. 17-18 for a discussion of grandeur in Aron.

and shared destiny. Because grandeur demands commitment and national sacrifice,
as Daniel J. Mahoney has explained, 'grandeur makes possible national coherence
and flourishing'.46Grandeur, then, has an air of the 'civilizing mission' about it, a
mission that is healthy not only for those who practice it but also for those who, like
the Algerians and the Moroccans, are its ostensible targets.
Although Aron was among the first to call for Algerian independence, it is
important to note that he was not opposed to the possession of colonies on principle.
Colonies were, in fact, an important element of the 'inspiring idea' necessary for
French grandeur. Indeed, just as the West had a moral obligation to stop the spread
of Communism and promote liberal democracy, so too did France apparently have
a moral duty to keep North Africa 'in the sphere of modern civilization', according
to Aron. It is not, Aron pointed out, 'in order to preserve outlets for our products
that public opinion is attached to "la presence franpais", so much as to maintain our
country's rank and sense of mission in the world'.47In fact, Aron was angered by the
British and American failure to help beleaguered French troops in Vietnam because,
as Tony Judt has explained, he 'shared the view, widespread in the political class of
his time, that France's identity was intimately bound up with her worldwide
possessions and influence'.48
However, Aron quickly realised that the rebellion which broke out in November
of 1954 was so violent that France could retain control only by the application of
overwhelming military force. Economically, the fight was not worth it; as Aron
pointed out, Algeria was an economic liability to France not an asset. And once
Morocco and Tunisia had been recognised, the most important war aim in Algeria
was to find Algerian leaders whose nationalism 'was not xenophobic'. 'Someday or
other', Aron wrote, 'we shall have to find the courage to adopt a radical solution:
either to propose the evacuation of Algeria by voting the millions of francs necessary
to repatriate the French or to maintain a French enclave on the coast, which the
rebels would be unable to capture'.49Would a complete pullout condemn Algeria to
chaos? Probably, but there were 'limits to the responsibilities which the community
can assume for a fraction of its members'. Would abandonment spell economic ruin
for Algeria? 'Once again', Aron observed, 'it is probable'.50France, however - which
stood condemned by its allies and half of its own people - could not continue to fight
in Algeria with no planned objective, even if the Algerians were pursuing a policy that
was not in their best interests. In the end, Aron wrote, France simply did not have the
'greatness' {la grandeurde puissance) to retain Algeria by force, especially in the face
of international condemnation.
In Algeria, then, we see Aron once again torn between the conflicting demands of
'arousing' and 'educating', of spurring a people to greatness and grandeur while
simultaneously imploring it to heed the facts of economic and political necessity.
Given the violent passions that the process of decolonisation unleashed in France,
46
Mahoney, De Gaulle, p. 17.
47
Raymond Aron, 'La France joue sa derniere chance en Afnque, IV: L'unite trancaise en peril , Le
Figaro (15 Octobre 1955). Cited in Robert Colquhoun, Raymond Aron: The Sociologist in Society
(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1986), p. 45.
48
Tony Judt, The Burden of Responsibility:Blum, Camus and Aron and the French lwentieth Century
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 148.
49
Raymond Aron, La Tragedie Algerienne (Paris: Plon), pp. 32-3. Cited in Colquhoun, The
Sociologist in Society, p. 47.
50
Aron, La Tragedie Algerienne, p. 33. Cited in Colquhoun, The Sociologist in Society, p. 47.

658 Reed Davis
one cannot but help but wonder if the task of educating would have been made a little
easier had Aron been less concerned with the challenge of arousing.
Clausewitz
Aron's diplomatic-strategic reflections are by no means confined to the broad,

sweeping recommendations that we find in Peace and War. Indeed, deeply interested
in the phenomenon of modern warfare, Aron wrote several major works on war and
strategy ranging in scope and complexity from a strangely impressionistic study of
war in the twentieth century to a critically-acclaimed analysis of the great Prussian
military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz. Of central importance to this section is the
book many feel to be Aron's best, namely, Clausewitz: Philosopher of War.51The
significance of this book for our analysis is the fact that, like Peace and War9
Clausewitzcontains a theory of action. As works of theory, however, these two books
are marked by a fundamental difference:Whereas Peace and Waris an original work
of theoretical construction, Clausewitzis an interpretive commentary on the strategic
thought of the great Prussian general; unlike Peace and War, it does not elaborate an
original theory.
For our purposes, the most important feature of Clausewitz is its striking logical
similarity to Peace and War. Aron was attracted to Clausewitz chiefly because
Clausewitz thought 'dialectically', as Aron put it, 'in the precise sense that he brought
pairs of opposed concepts into play'.52The most important antithesis to Aron is the
one he called 'moral-physical', because this antithesis, Aron explained, 'leads us to
the thing itself, namely, 'the action of men in conflict with each other across space
and time, the leaders assuming the responsibility of moving the mass despite the
friction, of imposing on events the guidance of an intelligent will'.53What, exactly,
constitutes the 'thing itself? How are we to conceptualise or understand the nature
of war and conflict? Clausewitz's great contribution, Aron maintained, is that he
understood war not as an act of military necessity but of political judgment. To
Clausewitz's way of thinking, wars have their origins in what are ultimately political
intentions. 'Whether Marshall Saxe often avoids battle or whether Napoleon always
seeks it', Aron declared, 'war remains war because in both cases, the state acts
politically by violence, whatever the methods might be'.54 Despite the diversity of
wars, then, this is the idea that unifies the concept of war. 'It is not the initial
conception of absolute war which allows the historical diversity of wars to be
subsumed under a single concept', Aron explained, 'but the intrinsically political
nature of war'.55Thus the origin of Clausewitz's most celebrated dictum: 'War is the
continuation of politics by other means'.
Why is Aron so insistent that a specifically political or intentional logic should
govern the 'grammar' of warfare? Because in his view, 'political logic . . . always
51
Raymond Aron, Clausewitz: Philosopher of War, trans. Christine Booker and Norman Stone
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983).
52
Clausewitz, p. 90.
53
Ibid., p. 90.
~
Ibid., p. 81.
55
Ibid., p. 81.

obeys a tendency toward equilibrium'.56Aron argued that for Clausewitz, inter-

national relations tended to maintain a given configuration of power rather than
provoke changes. 'Something like a common interest prevails in the system; it has not
sufficient force to guarantee a given state against the loss of a province or a relative
diminution of strength, but, ordinarily favors actions oriented toward equilibrium
and discourages action that would jeopardize it'.57 This is the image of Clausewitz
that Aron hoped to refurbish. Far from being an advocate of total war as some have
suggested, Aron's Clausewitz emerges a thinker of reserve and restraint, a theoreti-
cian who, like Aron, 'could analyze coolly all the factors that often push war toward
the extreme, yet whose own prescription was moderation and the deliberate victory
of the rational element'.58
Although the political (or what Aron occasionally referred to as the 'moral')
aspect of war is the decisive element in a definition of warfare, it is not the only reality
with which one must contend. We must always remember, Aron argued, that '[t]he
political end governs the war, but it is not a "despotic" lawgiver; it must adapt itself
to nature of the means, and is often modified'.59Real wars are not only determined
by the intentions of the combatants but by historical necessity as well. On the one
hand, Aron explained, 'politics - the brain of the personified state - determines the
military objective in terms of the ends of war . . .'. On the other hand, 'circumstances
determine the historical diversity of wars. Politics only adequately determine the end
provided that the nature of wars is exactly appreciated in terms of the circumstances
that condition it.'60 The structure of warfare, then, which is the conceptual
cornerstone of Clausewitzjust as diplomatic-strategic behaviour is the key conceptual
moment of Peace and War, conforms to the structure of all intentional action for
Aron: the intentional reality of political leadership is profoundly affected - but not
consumed - by the forces of military necessity. The structure of warfare in Clausewitz
thus evinces the same structure and logic as the structure of diplomatic-strategic
action presented in Peace and Warand the structure of self-knowledge in Introduction
to the Philosophy of History,
In matters of military strategy, we will review, firstly, Aron's efforts to commend
a consistent strategic posture for France, one that gave both grandeur and the forces
of strategic necessity their due. Secondly, we will consider Aron's attempts to explain
exactly what controlled the 'ladder of escalation' should war ever break out between
the West and the Soviet Union. Although Aron believed that reason offered the best
hope for moderation and equilibrium in military and strategic affairs, he also seemed
to believe that ultimately it was numerical superiority - or a fact of necessity - that
would carry the day.
Far from being made obsolete by the advent of the nuclear age, Clausewitz is in
many ways more relevant than ever before. Because absolute war is now capable of
transforming itself from a formal abstraction into a terrible possibility, prudence and
moderation are perhaps more imperative today than in Clausewitz's time. '[I]n the
nuclear age', Michael Howard has observed, 'the political object has to be kept in
56
Raymond Aron, 'Reason, Passion and Power in the Thought of Clausewitz', Social Research, 39
(1972), p. 610.
57
Ibid., p. 610.
58
Stanley Hoffmann, The Sword and the Pen', The New Republic (4 November 1985), p. 39.
59
Clausewitz, p. 134.
60
Ibid., p. 59.

660 Reed Davis
mind in order to impose limits on an activity whose destructiveness, left to itself, will
rapidly escalate to extremes of a kind such as Clausewitz had never conceived'.61Or,
as Aron put it, 'the spirit of reasoned intent that informs policy must not be allowed
to evaporate the moment the first bombs start exploding; intelligent national policy
must to the very end make a determined effort simultaneously to safeguard the
national interest and to prevent escalation to the extremes of violence'.62
It was on this basis of this essentially Clausewitzian principle - preserving the
spirit of reasoned intent - that Aron judged the doctrine of massive retaliation and
found it wanting. This is perhaps the first and most decisive consequence of
Clausewitzian thinking for Aron. Noting the conventional superiority of the Soviet
Union and fearful of becoming bogged down in another limited war like the
Korean war, officials in the Eisenhower administration declared that the US would
respond to Communist aggression against itself or its allies with nuclear weapons.
However, as Aron and a host of other commentators were quick to point out,
relatively minor acts of aggression would force the US to risk either overkill or
paralysis. Massive retaliation thus violated a cardinal tenet of Clausewitzian
doctrine: One must strike a balance between the interests at stake and the effort
required to protect them. What kind of military strategy in the nuclear age met
this test?
Aron's response is unequivocal: 'Precautions against misunderstanding and
escalation . . . require scuttling the doctrine of massive retaliation and replacing it by
the doctrine of graduated response'.63The danger of fighting a war no one wants to
fight can be reduced only if the choice between all-or-nothing is replaced by a much
greater range of military possibilities. By allowing for the possibility of calibration,
graduated response enables statesmen to apply a wide range of military and
diplomatic instruments to the task at hand, thus allowing them to exercise a greater
degree of control over escalation than was possible under the doctrine of massive
retaliation. 'We believe in maintaining effective deterrent strength', President
Kennedy had declared in explaining his administration's new strategic doctrine, 'but
we also believe in making it do what we want, neither more nor less'.64
The great virtue of graduated response, then, is that it enables statesmen to tailor
a proportionate response to aggression, enabling them 'to practice what they
preach'.65Only then, Aron explained, can there be a strategy that reduces the element
of bluff implicit in thermonuclear deterrence. A nation that has a wide range of
possible military-strategic choices at its disposal is far more likely to be believed by
potential aggressors, especially those who are considering local or limited acts of
aggression. Surely it is the height of paradox, Aron argued, to assert that 'the West
would weaken its deterrent capability in relation to local aggression by acquiring the
means to repel such aggression without recourse to nuclear weapons'.66
For many, the touchstone of a reasonable strategic doctrine lies in the hope that
it offers for keeping a limited war, especially one fought with tactical nuclear
61 Michael
Howard, Clausewitz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 14.
oz
Raymond Aron, The Great Debate: Theories of Nuclear Strategy, trans. Ernest Pawel (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1965), p. 67.
63
Aron, The Great Debate, p. 67.
64 Cited in
Gaddis, Strategies of Containment,pp. 214-15.
03
66
Ibid., p. 92.

weapons, from escalating into an all-out conflagration. In discussing the problem of

escalation, Aron underscored the dilemma that plagues defence and deterrence in the
nuclear age. On the one hand, 'reducing the risk of escalation increases the
temptation to use conventional weapons as a "sword" under the cover of a nuclear
"shield" or under the protection of reciprocally paralyzed thermonuclear systems'.67
On the other hand, Aron added, 'If no distinctions are made between initial
operations and ultimate weapons, there is a risk of ultimate escalation by accident or
misunderstanding'. In other words, 'escalation is at once a danger that needs to be
met and a threat that could not and should not be surrendered'.68
It was for this reason that Aron refused to speak of deterrence in the abstract. The
'eternal question' of deterrence for Aron was, 'what can deter whom, from what? In
what circumstances? And how?'69For this reason, Aron had little patience for the
abstract modelling advanced by analysts like Herman Kahn and the RAND
Corporation.70Although the determination to raise the level of violence is essential
to the efficacy of deterrence, Aron argued, one should never assume that escalation
is (or should be) automatic. Clausewitz immediately comes to mind: a specific
military decision 'depends on the many circumstances, material and moral, which
theory may consider in the abstract. Only judgment on the spot can and should
appreciate the relative importance of these in given circumstances in order to choose
the most appropriate method.'
Considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons becomes particularly compelling
if parity at the conventional level is unattainable. If NATO troops continue to be
overmatched by the conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact, then it becomes
pointless to refuse to employ tactical nuclear weapons either for deterrence or attack.
Given the West's conventional inferiority, a tactical nuclear threat 'does not add
substantially to the risk of their actual use ... because use of these weapons is in any
event highly probable . . .'.71 Moreover, Aron reasoned, such a threat may help
prevent a possible misunderstanding on the part of the aggressor 'who might
interpret all the multitudinous and subtle precautions taken against an almost
inevitable course of events as simple lack of fiber and determination'.72 The
contradiction inherent in deterrence, Aron concluded:
has led to the strategy of graduated response which, however, is as much a part of arms
control as it is of the theory of stability. Arms control, in its widest sense of the term, refers
to the total effort aimed at preventing recourse to force and, failing this, at limiting the
scope of the resulting violence. The strategy of graduated response may therefore be
interpreted as arms control during a crisis.73
All of this raises a crucial question, however: exactly whose finger should be on the
nuclear trigger?Interestingly enough, Aron was initially enthusiastic about France's
efforts to develop its own nuclear force in the 1950s. In fact, Aron argued that a
French nuclear deterrent was good not only for France but for Europe as a whole.
67
Ibid., p. 216.
58
Ibid., p. 216.
w
Ibid., p. 163.
70 See
especially Raymond Aron, The Evolution of Strategic Thought', m Politics and History:
Selected Essays by Raymond Aron, trans, and ed. Miriam B. Conant (New York: Free Press, 1978).
71
72
Ibid., p. 174.
u
Ibid., p. 217.

662 Reed Davis
As Colquhoun explained, Aron believed that "Theforce defrappe had ... a certain
prestige value as well as an undoubted diplomatic value in negotiations with the US
on the sharing of secrets'. Moreover, Aron reasoned, an independent French force
could plausibly add to the deterrent capability not only of the West in general but
Europe in particular. 'It would certainly give added authority to France's voice in the
counsels of the Alliance', Colquhoun wrote, especially 'when the latter had to decide
the line of resistance to be taken against the Soviet Union'.74 In other words, an
independent nuclear force was in keeping with the policy of grandeur, national
greatness apparently being beyond the reach of those who were politically and
militarily dependent on the protection and power of others.
In later years, however, Aron reversed his position. 'In theory, perhaps', Aron
wrote, 'it might have been preferable to limit the US' possession and disposition of
nuclear weapons within the alliance'.75Although entrusting the control of nuclear
weapons to a single power does not guarantee that these weapons will be rationally
deployed, Aron seemed to suggest that it would certainly improve the odds.
However, as he also noted, given the nature of international political behaviour and
the 'age-old aspirations of states', it would be unreasonable to expect that those
who do not possess nuclear weapons would willingly forego the opportunity to
acquire them. Thus, the problem today 'is less to ascertain what formula would be
best in itself than to avoid certain ill-fated consequences of the multiplication of
costly national forces, which are of scant effectiveness and quickly outmoded by
technology'.76
What, then, should be done?
Aron's answer is not altogether clear. In Peace and War, he apparently envisioned
the formation of a European deterrent force 'which, without officially depending on
the American deterrent, would act only in cooperation with it'.77 In a later work,
however, Aron hedged on his call for a European deterrent, uncertain about the
institutional controls that cooperation would entail. The problem of control, he
observed, plagues the European deterrent just as much as it plagues the American
one. Convinced that 'the time of the American (or Anglo-American) directorate is
past', Aron hoped that the West, especially the US, would do more to change NATO
from a military alliance into an 'authentic Atlantic community'.78
Broadly speaking, the solution to the problem of command and community, at
least to Aron's way of thinking, rested on the US willingness to understand the minds
and motivations of the Europeans and on the Europeans' willingness to trust the
intentions behind America's strategic doctrine. More concretely, Americans must
give Europeans a greater sense of participation on formulating Atlantic strategy.
There is no good reason, Aron insisted, for excluding Europeans from the concep-
tion, formulation or elaboration of military strategy. Relying freely on arguments
developed by Alistair Buchan, Aron argued that once Europeans 'had made a
genuine contribution to the strategic concepts and operational plans, they would be
willing to leave operational responsibility to the American leaders'.79In this plan,
74 Robert
° Colquhoun, The Sociologist in Society, p. 297.
76
Ibid., p. 694.
77
Ibid., p. 694.
78
Ibid., p. 693.
7y

then, the US would retain control of the nuclear trigger but the elaboration of an
overall military posture and division of labour would rest with the Europeans.
If the French government accepted this proposal, Aron mused, then the US and
Great Britain would probably do the same. There was, of course, a rather large
obstacle blocking the way of an agreement here, namely, Charles de Gaulle. De
Gaulle's demand for greater military independence, so essential to his vision of
grandeur, could be satisfied only by an exclusively national force. For his part,
however, Aron had developed a pronounced aversion to the idea of an independent
French deterrent:theforce defrappe was too small, too vulnerable, and too expensive
to be of much strategic significance. In Peace and War, Aron argued that a country
could exert some degree of deterrent power once it acquired a nuclear retaliatory
capability. However, he eventually came to doubt that 'in a test of nerves, the leaders
of a country risking total annihilation are the equals of those whose country would
merely sustain some losses'.80
In Aron's opinion, France would be better served if it submitted to a common
discipline and integrated its military force into the command structure of NATO. To
value the power of independent choice between war and peace above national
security may once have been a sign of national greatness', Aron wrote, '[b]ut I do not
believe that in the thermonuclear age this should be considered an appropriate goal
for the national ambition of a country such as France'.81Given the awful possibilities
of a nuclear war, everything - including the eternal desires for independence and
greatness - must be subordinated to the contemporary necessities of security. This
does not mean that the desire for greatness should be disregarded but it does mean
that the urge for autonomy should be kept on a very short leash, a notion that
brought Aron full circle once again: insisting from the outset that a nuclear posture
should serve to enhance French greatness and grandeur, Aron yielded in the end to
the arguments from strategic 'necessity'.
Aron took up the problem of escalation once again when George Kennan, Gerard
Smith, McGeorge Bundy, and Robert McNamara publicly urged the US to adopt the
policy of 'no first use' of nuclear weapons in 1982. Unlike some members of the 'band
of four', however, Aron had not changed his mind regarding the possible use of
tactical and strategic weapons to defend Europe against military aggression. The case
for 'no first use', Aron observed, rests on 'an essential idea that [Kennan, Smith,
Bundy and McNamara] do not demonstrate but affirm,here and there, as self-evident:
any use of nuclear arms, tactical or strategic, provokes uncontrolled escalation'.82To
Aron, a vastly different scenario was every bit as imaginable as the one postulated by
Kennan and his colleagues. The overwhelming fear and dread that would inevitably
grip the leaders of those states contemplating a nuclear strike makes it reasonable to
assume that those leaders would make contact with the enemy, resume the dialogue,
and halt the escalation. Aron also refused to subscribe to the notion that all escalation
necessarily ends in mutual destruction. A nuclear exchange would certainly leave
untold death and destruction in its wake, Aron wrote, but it would not necessarily
reduce both the United States and the Soviet Union to radioactive rubble; neither
would it 'condemn millions of children to genetic destruction.'83
80
Ibid., p. 138.
81
Ibid., p. 265.
*z
Aron, Dernieres Annees, p. 68.
83
Ibid., p. 70.

664 Reed Davis
The pleas for a 'no first use' policy, prompted by the decision to station mid-range
missiles on European soil, also led Aron to review his own 'Clausewitzian' call,
delivered some twenty years earlier, for a strategy of graduated response. More
specifically, Aron sought to understand the effect that the growth of Soviet nuclear
power had on the American military posture. Did the loss of American nuclear
superiority make the policy of flexible response an anachronism? 'In a sense', Aron
answered, 'yes'.84'The original idea of escalation - or in Clausewitzian language, of
the ascension to extremes - was sustained, if not created, by the implicit hypothesis
of American superiority at the highest levels'.85However, Aron immediately pointed
out, given the growth of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, there is no longer any reason 'to
conserve this illusion'. The decisive question, then, is this: '[D]oes the intervention of
the "engine de la balance centrale" [Pershing Two missiles] restore the credibility of
the Western deterrent'?86
The fundamental significance of the Euromissiles, Aron argued, does not lie in the
fact that they contribute to the re-establishment of a numerical equilibrium that had
been upset by the Soviet introduction of the SS 20. 'The notion of equilibrium hardly
has any meaning in matters of nuclear arms', Aron wrote. 'That the medium-range
missiles are as numerous on one side as on the other matters little'.87 What does
matter is that the Euromissiles can strike at targets deep in Soviet territory, a fact that
immediately dispels the notion that a limited war will be confined to European soil,
thus sparing the superpowers. In the event that a Pershing Two is launched in
self-defense, does this mean that the Soviet Union will then respond by launching its
missiles against the US? If they should do so, then the Soviet Union '[r]isksenlarging
the range of battle and entering into direct conflict with the power of the outer
Atlantic'.88An attack against Western Europe would thus 'in all probability' lead to
American participation. 'In strategic jargon, the Pershing Two's have for their
mission the task of keeping a limited war from being confined to the boundaries of
the Old Continent', thereby preventing the decoupling of the US from Europe.89
But does this not set in motion the possibility of an ascension to extremes against
which Kennan, Bundy, Smith and McNamara protested so vigorously? It does
indeed. Aron, however, was willing to take his chances:
If the menace[of a nuclearthreat]is taken seriously,non-warbecomesmore probable;but
if it is not taken seriously,if we proceedto applyingthe threat,catastropheengulfsus all.
This is a valid objection,but one whichrespondsto an antinomythat has been recognised
and commentedupon indefinitelyfor the past forty years:the greaterthe horrorthe threat
banished,the greaterthe horrorof its execution.90
The decision to station Pershing Two missiles on European soil was one of the very
few strategic developments near the end of his life that Aron had warmly applauded.
Alarmed by the growth of Soviet military power, Aron repeatedly voiced his concern
that detente and the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks had lulled the West into a false
sense of security. By any standard of judgement, Aron argued, all attempts at
84
85
Ibid., p. 79.
8t>
Ibid., p. 79.
87
Ibid., p. 79.
88
Ibid., p. 83.
89
Ibid., p. 81.
90
Ibid., p. 81.
Ibid., p. 85.

bilateral arms control (most notably the SALT agreements) have been abject failures.
'Arms control has assisted in the decline of American power and helped conceal it.'
Although the Soviet union spared neither money nor brainpower in its quest for
'military absolutes', it was equally true that the US 'obsession with arms control
caused the American leaders to forget the balance of power and remain passive in the
face of the Soviet threat'. Unmoved by the assertion that dialogue between the
superpowers was desirable in itself, Aron flatly declared that no meaningful dialogue
could occur between two states so implacably opposed to one another.
Given this situation, there is simply no alternative to safeguarding deterrence and
defence by stockpiling America-controlled nuclear weapons in Europe. Dismissing
George Kennan's proposal for mutual withdrawal of military forces from the
European theatre as naive and far-fetched, Aron maintained that Moscow and
Washington preferreda situation that was deplorable but stable to the unpredictable
consequences that military disengagement would trigger. 'However unfortunate the
division of Europe may be', Aron wrote, 'the dividing line is at least known and
respected'.
Whatever the merits of Aron's arguments here, the important point is that we
are now far from the cool confidence in political rationality that Clausewitz
commended to Aron in the first place. Implicit in Aron's approach is the notion
that diplomacy can do little to alter the conventions of the Cold War. In light of
the Soviet Union's sworn hostility towards the West, Aron reasoned, diplomatic
negotiations, which by definition 'suppose that we give as much as we receive',
would only be an act of craven appeasement. Aron was particularly disturbed by
Morgenthau's claim that the Cold War would inevitably become a hot one if the
superpowers failed to negotiate a settlement dividing the world into spheres of
influence. Although it was to Morgenthau's credit that his political realism 'invites
us to keep our heads cool, to be suspicious of abstractions, [and] to look at the
world as it is instead of imagining it to be what we would like it to be',
Morgenthau nevertheless tended 'to mistake traditional diplomacy ... for eternal
diplomacy'.91
Aron was also profoundly unhappy with Kennan's willingness to embrace
diplomatic negotiations as a means of relieving some of the pressure generated by the
mistrust between the US and the Soviet Union. Although he had greatly admired
Kennan's public service and scholarship, Aron was bitterly disappointed by what he
perceived to be a change of heart on Kennan's part during the 1960s. After thirteen
years of diplomatic service, Aron wrote, 'Mr X' had rightfully denounced the
illusions of the American left, incapable as it was of comprehending the method and
manner of Soviet thinking. Unfortunately, some thirty years later, Kennan 'had lost
his learning and his convictions'.92What Aron found to be utterly incomprehensible
was Kennan's conviction that the death of Stalin had altered the nature of the Soviet
regime. Even though Brezhnev exhibited none of Stalin's paranoia, and even though
the Soviet leadership was in all probability not plotting to launch a surprise attack
against Europe, it simply did not follow that the Soviet Union had become more
politically agreeable.
91
Raymond Aron, 'Quest for a Philosophy of Foreign Affairs', in ContemporaryTheory in
International Relations, ed. Stanley Hoffmann (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1960), p. 83.
92
Aron, Dernieres Annees, p. 184.

666 Reed Davis
Particularlyregrettable,in Aron's opinion, was Kennan's failure to see any

significancein the changingbalanceof militarypowerbetweenthe US and the Soviet
Union. How, Aron wondered,could Kennanarguethat at the very momentwhen
Soviet militarypower and activity had increased,Soviet political ambitionshad
abated?Thusa rareoutburstfromAron:'I say to Kennan:Whatworldareyou living
in? Why have you lost contactwith reality'?93
Aron's readingof Kennan and the sources of Soviet conduct aside, it must be
admittedthat his attitudetowardnegotiatingwith the Soviet Union appearsto be
morelogicallysatisfyingthat Kennan'sin one fundamentalrespect:giventhe goal of
containingthe SovietUnion, the US woulddo considerabledamageto its credibility
both at home and abroadif it initiatednegotiationswith the Russians.'[H]owcould
the Americancommitmentto resistaggressionbe believed',John Gaddishas asked,
'if at the same time the US was engaged in negotiationswith the most likely
aggressor?It [is] simply easier not to negotiate'.94Perhaps,but as Gaddis also
recognised,the price of consistencycan be 'strategicshort-sightedness'.If one's
immediategoal is to maintaineconomicand militarystrengthto counterthe Soviet
threat,then one mustbe verycarefulnot to lose sightof the objectivethat this power
is supposedto serve,namely,endingthe ColdWar.Properlyapproached,withan eye
to the discoveryof convergentinterestsas well as irreconcilabledifferences,negotia-
tions can contributeto the creationof a stableworld order.Otherwise,if one only
negotiateswith thosewhomone trusts,diplomacybecomesredundant,a luxuryto be
indulgedin only after peace and order have been achieved.Moreover,as Henry
Kissingerhas so often pointedout, discoveringwhat the Sovietswould have agreed
to abideby could not have beendiscoveredin the abstract;if the Sovietshad wanted
an agreement,negotiationswould have revealedthis. Surelyit is no contradiction
to assert, as Kennan has, that the US and the Soviet Union could have reached
short-termagreementswithout committing themselves to a friendly, long-term
partnership.
Aron'sconcludingparagraphto a smallvolumeof essayson war in the twentieth
centuryprovidesa fittingconclusionto this section.In bringinghis studyto a close,
Aron wonderedwhetherit was fruitfulto peer into the futurein orderto divinethe
courseof politicaland militaryevents.Trueto form, he refusedto speculate.'What
wouldbe the point',he asked,'unlessto wardoff the temptationsto despair?'Instead
of conjecture,Aron offeredonly the consolationof reason:'Thepowerof false ideas
condemnsall hope of world unity in the immediatefuture,but not the hope of a
gradual,ultimatereconciliationof the humanrace'.95
Conclusion
Where,then, does Aron belong?Givenhis repeatedconcessionsto necessity,is he in

the end best understoodas a realist?If so, Aron's peculiarrealismstood in sharp
contrastat pointswith whathe calledthe 'Americanrealism'of Hans Morgenthau.96
93
Ibid., p. 193.
94
Gaddis, Strategies of Containment,p. 86.
*J
Raymond Aron, On War, trans. Terence Kilmartin (Garden City. NY: Doubleday, 1968), p. 143.
yo On this
point, see Peace and War, pp. 53-4.

Indeed, Aron's rather trenchant criticism of Morgenthau's realism extended to a wide

range of issues including the logic of theory, the nature of politics, and the criteria by
which we judge a sound and humane foreign policy. What makes Aron's criticism
of Morgenthau rather striking is that both Aron and Morgenthau appear to hold
fast to a common set of first principles. Both men, for example, stressed the limited
utility of theory for practice and so counselled a politics of prudence, or a politics
of incremental adjustment wrought by the slow, hard work of compromise and
negotiation. Where, then, do their differences lie and at what point do these
differences first begin to emerge?
The most fundamental and consequential difference, we believe, revolves around
a dramatically different assessment of the relation between reason and human nature.
As we have seen, Aron grounded his reflections about human action and politics in
his prior conclusions about the nature and limits of reason. For Aron, the inherent
limits of theoretical thought suggest that we can never know our true self, the self that
lies behind our acts of love and self-interest but can be identified with neither. Viewed
from this perspective, Morgenthau's reduction of the human self to little more than
a 'foul rag-and-bone shop' is pure dogma, a one-sided abstraction that fails to do
justice to the full reality of the human condition.
For his part, however, Morgenthau looked upon the relation between reason and
human nature from an entirely different vantage point. Reason, Morgenthau
declared, 'is like a light which by its inner force can move nowhere. It must be carried
by the irrational forces of interest and emotion to where these forces want it to move,
regardless of what the inner logic of abstract reason would require.'97By refusing to
separate the process of cognition from the inescapable pull of self-love, Morgenthau
emphasised the dependence of the epistemological question ('What can I know?') on
the anthropological one ('Who am I?') For Morgenthau, reason does not define the
self as it does - at least in part - for Aron. Rather, reason reflects or expresses the self.
From this perspective, it is Aron's willingness to postulate a 'gap' or a 'break'
between the intentional and the psychological dimensions of the human personality
that constitutes an unjustifiable abstraction. To Morgenthau's way of thinking,
rationality and contemplation are not more authentically human than emotion and
-
volition, as Aron's epistemological hierarchy suggests, because the will-to-power
-
the urge to control both nature and one's fellows can be pursued by the intellect as
well as the passions.
For these reasons, Morgenthau was far more likely than Aron to distrust the ready
equation of knowledge, freedom and progress. Although both Aron and Morgenthau
accepted the necessity of power politics, Morgenthau, much like Reinhold Niebuhr,
tended to inveigh against the temptations of power whereas Aron tended to
underscore the responsibilities of power. Morgenthau's pleas for greater political
realism in the conduct of foreign affairs were frequently accompanied by reminders
that there are limits to power or to the ability to mould the world after one's own
given image. For Aron, however, it was 'moral lethargy' or 'failure of nerve' that was
of the gravest concern; his deepest fear was that the US would fail to recognise the
historic and global obligations of great power leadership. 'I have always been
troubled less by the excessive power of the US', Aron wrote, 'than by the instability
97 Hans
Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1962), p. 155.

668 Reed Davis
of a continent nation, cast by the fortunes of war into world politics, whose leaders,
most of them unaware of the historical fate of the Republic, are driven by the
changing currents of world opinion'.
In the end, it is impossible, really, to know how to categorise Aron's dialectical
approach to reason, politics and ethics. Compounding the difficulty is the intensely
personal way he frequently applied his dialectical outlook to matters at hand. As
Francois Furet observed:
He was on the left beforethe war but criticalof the politicaleconomyof the Popular
Front. Of the smallnumberwho made theirway to Londonin 1940,he remainedthe
exception:he alone was not a Gaullist.After the war, however,he becameone but not
until deGaullehad left power.Breakingwith Sartreon communism,he becamea specialist
on Marxism.An editorialistfor Figaro,he spoke out againstthe war in Algeria.When
deGaullereturnedto power,he offeredonly sustainedcritique.98
In fact, in speaking out about Algeria, as Tony Judt has noted, Aron agreed with
every other leading intellectual in France on the need for Algerian independence but
offered arguments for independence that were wholly unlike theirs. Aron's argu-
ments, as we have seen, were grounded not in some sort of moral imperative but in
the facts of economic and political self-interest.
In Aron's thought, we witness a heroic effort to keep the contradictions of the
human condition pulled together into a kind of reasonable synthesis. In assessing
Aron's legacy, perhaps Pascal's standard is the most appropriate: 'It is on thought
that we must depend for our recovery', Pascal wrote, 'not on space and time, which
we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of
morality'. In striving to think well, we strive for truth. Despite the monstrous
deformations of the truth wrought by twentieth century despotisms, Aron held fast
to his lifelong conviction that 'the truth is great and will prevail'. It is in that light that
Aron's work is best understood; it is for that effort that his work deserves to be
remembered.
98 Francois
Furet, 'La rencontre d'une idee et d'une vie', Commentaire,8 (1985), p. 52.


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