Abstract

MONTEIRO, Nuno P.. Waltz and the American unipolarity. Relações Internacionais [online]. 2013, n.39, pp.25-33. ISSN 1645-9199.

Kenneth Waltz resisted describing the post-Cold War world as unipolar. This reluctance results from two characteristics of his structural realism: its naturalistic view of systemic balances of power and its focus on relations among great powers. Yet, Waltz’s thinking on the nuclear revolution allows us to correct these limitations of his structural theory and highlight two central aspects of American unipolarity: its potential durability in a nuclear world and its potential for preventive counter-proliferation wars. In sum, Waltz’s structural realism, when combined with his thinking about a nuclear world, produces a powerful analytic apparatus to further our understanding of our post-Cold War unipolar world

Keywords : Nuclear weapons; realism; unipolarity; Kenneth N. Waltz.

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