The parameters needed for the study of global human dynamics are  1. the existence of at least two human entities with distinct identities and  2. their encounter. When, in the course of their relations, as a result of conflict, one of the two entities is totally annihilated or absorbed within the other, or when due to cooperation and cohabitation a total merger of their identities has taken place, the ensuing entity ceases to be within the purview of our study and we need to pass the torch of research on to other social sciences -- keeping an eye, nevertheless, on what the torch illuminates.

There was a time when there were Gauls and Franks in France and there were Lombards and Romans in Italy.  But they are hard to identify as distinct entities in France and Italy today.  There are now some Basques and Friulians who are residues of the Gauls -- Celts – and Lombards who identify themselves as distinct entities.  To the extent that they do so, a study of global human dynamics would be remiss not to make note of them. [2]

In terms of current conventional international relations, there was the sovereign state of USSR.  The existence of Armenians, Azeris, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Moldavians and even Chechens within the Soviet Union, effected that sovereign "nation-state's" international relations to the point of its demise.  The tribal map of Africa on the next page does not look like the political map of that continent at all, but it does affect the international relations of the "nation-states" on that continent and elsewhere.  We could draw similar maps for other continents.
 

Source: George Peter Murdock, Africa: Its People and Their Culture History, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1959.
 

RADIUS OF IDENTITY[3]

Human entities may or may not be "nations" or "nation-states" in the modern sense.  By using the term entity, we would like to avoid, at this early stage of our inquiry, the use of terms which in conventional international relations are immediately identified as "actors".  Our concept of entity refers to a state of consciousness rather than action.  An entity may not be an actor.  It may be the object or the subject, be split or be absorbed, and yet remain, for our purposes, an entity.  We could have used the term group and in some cases we will.  But in social sciences the term "group" has its limitations and does not always carry with it the critical mass implied in the dynamics of encounter subject of our inquiry. [4]  What we mean by a human entity is the lasting sense of belonging, a consciousness among a people as to their common identity to the exclusion of others.  What distinguishes them is their sense of identity as a distinct entity: their radius of identity.

The specificity of an entity may be due to accidents of birth, i.e., ethnicity and nationhood (from Greek ethnos and Latin natio meaning birth):  Where, out of whom and into what the members of the group are born.  Birth is an important factor of identity, especially when accompanied by physiognomic particularities such as race or color.  But what in effect provides an entity with its identity are its cultural and tribal characteristics.

We use the terms culture and tribe in their generic sense.  Culture meaning the way a people takes care of itself and its environment: cultus --  the way its members relate to each other, to nature and the supernatural -- their cults; the way they cultivate their land, take care of their children and their elderly.  By tribe we mean the way an entity attributes, distributes, retributes, contributes: tribuere -- the way tributes are made and tribunals are set.  In short, the economico-legal pattern by which a human entity recognizes itself as a belonging network. [5]

Natio -- birth -- because of the relative ease of its verification, whether of the place of birth or parents [6], can and has often been used for tribal arrangements.  Hence the development of the concept of patrimony, combining affectional and functional relations to provide socio-economic and legal structures for the cohesion and continuity of the society.  The underlying fabrics of patrimony  -- and by extension, patria and patriotism -- are cultural and tribal.

The tribo-cultural fabric corresponds to the intertwined needs of the individual and the entity for security and survival which, paradoxically, may jeopardize the individual's survival.  For their sustenance, primeval men needed common effort to bring down the mammoth,  but in the process some of them were mauled to death by the animal.  Some may have chosen not to risk their lives in the hunt and may have become marginal members while others, courageous -- or maybe just as afraid -- may have avoided the dangers by divining for the hunt and taken the center stage.  Variations within human entities forge their characteristics and their normative patterns making them different from each other.  Some of the characteristics are of particular interest to the study of their encounters and we shall examine them as we go along.  Consciousness and the sense of belonging, commitment and loyalty of the members, and their radius of identity will determine the cohesiveness of a particular entity.  Radius of identity does not necessarily imply the physical togetherness of the members of an entity.  The consciousness of an entity can encompass the sense of belonging of dispersed members of a clan or a religion, as well as multinational corporate loyalty.

Its radius of identity provides each entity with its own common patterns of behavior and understanding.  Each entity will develop common perceptions of right and wrong and rights and responsibilities; of what is "normal" from the way its members dress, eat, play, pray, dance, walk, and talk to social arrangements and rules.  Those who belong to the entity understand their fellow members and believe they are understood by them.  These are factors which permit each of them, in their interaction with their environment, to recognize the strange phenomena and the strangers.  Strange and stranger are, of course, relative terms and depend on the factors present at the time of perception. In the face of the stranger and the strangest, the stranger may become less strange.  Yet, where the more familiar becomes a threat, the stranger may become an ally. History is the chronicle of such events:  the Popes seeking the help of the Chinese to counter the Muslims, the British and the French seeking the help of the Iroquois and the Choctaw against each other, Napoleon and the Persians in a pact to attack the Russians, the Western capitalist democracies allies of the socialist Soviet Union against Hitler.[7]

The dynamics of encounter between entities with different radii of identity depends on a multitude of interdependent factors which should be presented to the inquirer simultaneously.  If it were a painting, we would have shown the canvas only upon completion to impress upon the viewer the intertwined shades, colors and hues.  But written language, being what it is, obliges us to string otherwise unstring able phenomena and appeal to the imagination of the reader to see them in their flux.
 

POINT OF EXHAUSTION

Among the crucial factors we need to take into account is what we may call point of exhaustion.  In their interaction with their environment, human entities develop economies corresponding to their modes of production.  Their economies and environmental realities define the limits of their potentials for expansion.  We could have reduced the concept to economic development.  But point of exhaustion, while dependent on the means of production and methods of distribution, has attributes which go beyond and involve socio-psychological factors.  The American frontier spirit found its point of exhaustion in Vietnam. [8]

Beyond certain physical constraints and restraints, such as the inevitability of dying of thirst in a hot desert beyond a certain point no matter how strong one may be, point of exhaustion is relative and depends on its perception by the group.  It all depends what the members of the entity find they are exhausted about.  The point of exhaustion of a soldier used to daily showers and the PX is generally different from that of a guerilla fighter surviving on a bowl of rice.  The proposition can be extended to the Japanese workers of the Seventies and the Korean workers of the Eighties who worked long hours with concentration and relatively less entertainment than their Western counterparts.  Among other things, point of exhaustion depends on productivity, will and determination.

Put differently, point of exhaustion is where and when a power runs out of steam.  Establishing that point is obviously a subjective endeavor.  We may assume that an entity, depending on its resources, has a potential point of exhaustion.  It may have oil under the ground, the technology to extract it and the scientific and industrial know-how to use it.  Once these parameters are properly combined and the oil is put into the engines, taking the entity farther along, the potential point of exhaustion has turned into actual point of exhaustion.  And as one looks at the possibilities of further development of the engines, the use of oil and the human parameters, one can project further potential points of exhaustion.

Potential point of exhaustion can also be observed retrospectively where the actual point of exhaustion is a retrogression from a previously more extensive one. The entity which may have had excellent communications, system of learning, efficient administration and cohesive order may decay into sclerosis, corruption and self-indulgence.  It may still have all the ingredients for furthering its point of exhaustion: its potential point of exhaustion.  History, however, seems to indicate that the revival and furtherance of the decayed point of exhaustion is less likely than one with initial potentials.  Historically, decaying entities have usually gained new vigor only when particular circumstances and conjunctures have given them a jolt -- or have collapsed due to them.[9]

In terms of encounter, point of exhaustion may constrain entities from reaching each other. In the primeval sense of early contacts one may, for example, envision the supply of water as a constraining element limiting the radius of activity of the entities and keeping them from meeting each other.  A constraint which the primeval entities may have eventually overcome by inventing canteens permitting them to venture farther and coming in contact with one another. The proposition of non-encounter had some likelihood up to the Nineteenth Century and was the source of the concept of res nullius in international law, i.e., it was possible to expand without encountering another entity.  That legal concept may still apply in outer space.

Point of exhaustion as a factor can help us observe the outcome of the encounter.  In terms of the dynamics of encounter, however, point of exhaustion is not where the entity would have theoretically run out of steam in vacuum, but where it is going to run out of steam in its encounter with another entity.    Where the point of exhaustion of one or some of the entities is overwhelmingly farther than some others they encounter, the outcome may be total absorption or annihilation of the weaker ones by the stronger.  That is, if the intent of the expanding entities is indeed to absorb and annihilate and no understanding for mutual co-existence is developed between the overwhelmingly stronger and the weaker entities.  Westlake, reflecting on the relationship of colonizers and the indigenous tribes wrote:
 

“But in the early times of international law, when the appropriation of a newly discovered region was referred to the principles which were held to govern the so-called natural modes of acquisition, the occupation by uncivilized tribes of a tract, of which according to our habits a small part ought to have sufficed for them, was not felt to interpose a serious obstacle to the right of the first civilized occupant. The region was scarcely distinguished from a res nullius.” [10]

The absorption of the overwhelmed entity(ies) may, of course, also result from the actual fact of overwhelming: the superior power, in its élan, submerging the weaker and remaining in control.  However, at any given time, the classical case for our discipline would arise where points of exhaustion of the entities permit them to encounter but not irrevocably eliminate each other, thus developing a relationship between alien entities. The dynamics of encounter usually evoke the territorial phenomenon.  Territorial contiguity is obviously conducive to encounter.  While the territorial component may constitute an important aspect of the encounter between entities, especially due to population increases, as has been the case in more recent history, the territorial phenomenon should not distract us from other aspects of the dynamics of encounter.  The Yanomamö Indians of Amazons travel for five days to reach a rival tribe to engage in blood revenge and warfare.[11]  The Eddystone Islanders built canoes for the purpose of reaching other islands on their head-hunting expeditions. [12]  More contemporary examples of points of encounter beyond contiguity are competition, conflict and cooperation between multinational corporations on global scale.

Point of exhaustion should not be taken only as an intently aggressive force, but rather as the consequence of developed modes of production and expansive nature of an entity which does not necessarily overwhelm another culture territorially.  The developments within an entity may attract and absorb elements of other entities such as has been the case of migrations whether of the Phoenician and Germanic people into the Roman Empire, the Turkish and Yugoslav Gast Arbeiter (guest worker) into the German Federal Republic in the Sixties and the Seventies, or Mexican and other Latin Americans into the United States, generating many of the characteristics of encounter between alien entities including clashes, compromise, absorption and transformation of cultures.

UNDERSTANDING

The intercourse among the entities will depend on the overlap of their radii of identity: to the degree they understand each other.  To understand each other, they will have to be able to communicate with one another.  Communication has an interpenetrating quality.  What is transmitted has to be received and understood.  However, once contact has been established and the channel of communications is opened, the scale of possibilities does not only develop from zero (0) -- the pre-encounter ignorance and lack of knowledge about the other -- on to the positive side towards understanding, but may also extend on the negative side towards misunderstanding.  Whether the signals received are properly understood will depend on the degree of affinity between the sender and the receiver and their willingness to understand.

In many species, codes of communication are genetically transferred from one generation to another -- although even then regional variations develop which make communications between members of the same species living in different environments difficult.  In man the development of communication is by and large a social and cultural phenomenon.  It is not only a question of signals, but the context in which they evolve.  The primeval men smelled, sniffed, gesticulated and expressed feelings by the touch and look in their eyes.  Their non-verbal communications were more elaborate than those of the "civilized" man.  But in their interaction with their environment and their conspecies, men developed more complex economies and communications.  Whatever may have been the genetic collective consciousness at the primeval level turned into social and cultural group identity.  Communications are thus signals, words and utterances intertwined with the way of life and the value system of an entity.  They may not mean and look the same from one culture to another and can cause misunderstandings.

While there may be similitude attraction, curiosity to meet and efforts toward understanding; understanding does not necessarily bring about agreement.  There may be conflicting interests and temperaments involved.  Thus, besides the spectrum of misunderstanding-understanding, at the understanding end of that spectrum we have to establish a cross-sectioning spectrum of agreement/disagreement.  The difference in the radii of identity of the entities will handicap the process of understanding and agreement, and make their relations fall, sooner or later, in the areas of misunderstanding and disagreement generating conflict.[13]
 

Combined with other factors, the spectrum of understanding/ misunderstanding can have different effects on the dynamics of encounter.  Mutual ignorance of two entities about each other’s existence may be considered as both cause and effect of non-encounter. Certain circumstances and conjunctures, however, can affect that situation.  The Caribes and Africans may not have known about each other before the European incursions into Africa and the West Indies.  Yet, the Europeans' knowledge of both of them eventually influenced the dynamics of encounter between the two, as well as the relationship of the Europeans with them.

Within the spectrum, different areas of understanding, misunderstanding and ignorance can coexist and in their combination with other factors produce different outcomes.  People belonging to the same religion, for example, may have an assumed shared identity and understanding despite the fact that they may have little in common.  The Muslims of Nigeria may support the Lebanese Muslims and the French Christians support the Lebanese Christians.  Yet, the two Lebanese factions may have many more areas of understanding (and agreement and disagreement) with each other than with those supporting them.  A distinction must, therefore, be made between assumed and actual understanding.

Besides the cultural and tribal differences handicapping understanding, the strangeness and other attributes of the stranger can also generate resistance to understanding.  Either because entities involved are afraid to lose their own identity or because admission of understanding may force them to agree to positions not in their own interest and thus curtail their options -- on options see our discussion of "depression and attraction" below.

The understanding of the stranger will differ in degrees and nature among the different strata of an entity.  Those who get involved in regular direct contact with the stranger will develop certain likes and dislikes and a knowledge of the stranger not experienced by others.  The involvement may be at different levels of social responsibility and in different kinds of activities, with different impacts on the relations between the entities.  The salesman in one entity may "understand" the needs of the stranger and want to sell his wares to the other entity, but the political decision-makers of his entity may hinder the sale, finding that it will strengthen the alien and undermine the security of the entity.  Or, the decision-makers may not be aware of the consequences of the transfer of the technology and knowledge through the sales and the sales may actually take place and, in the long run, indeed undermine the security of the entity.  The pages of history are dotted with transfers of technology resulting in the decline of one and the emergence of another power.

The decision-makers -- those who have a bigger stake in the cohesion of the entity -- whether political, religious, ideological, economic or communal, are more aware of the need to resist understanding.  Each will try to avoid the contamination of the group by its rival.  The Catholic will ban public access to Protestant literature, the Muslim the Christian, the capitalist the communist and so on.  The "dialogue of the deaf" is not only a saying; it is a method of diplomatic negotiation.  If you know your interlocutor is right and you admit it and claim to be reasonable, you lose the option of claiming to be reasonable and yet be unreasonable.  And generally human entities have considered the danger of losing identity too ominous and the gains associated with the options too tantalizing to open themselves to total understanding of the stranger.  It may well be that lack of total understanding is not a deliberate choice but inherent in the nature of human groups:  That, perforce, the radius of identity needs to be limited in order to make the group function -- the need to designate some as they in order to identify we.

The dilemma, however, is the need to understand the others for one's own security. Intelligence, besides its modern connotation of espionage and covert operations, is an integral part of the dynamics of encounter.  To deal intelligently with the others -- foes or friends -- one has to know them.  Who should know what and how much will depend on the strata within an entity and their perception of their radius of identity.

Understanding of the alien will not be of different degrees only among the different strata of one entity but may, and usually is, uneven between the encountering entities.  Just because one entity has an understanding of another entity does not necessarily imply reciprocity.  Indeed, the discrepancy in understanding may give an edge to one of the parties.  For example, the understanding party may gain versatility in dealing with the other.  But not understanding the subtleties of another party may also avoid inhibitions in the ignorant party.  The Romans knew much about the Germanic tribes, which instilled in them the awe of their ferocity; and the German people understood little of the Roman civilization, which reduced their awe of its magnificence.

DEPRESSION AND ATTRACTION

In the context of its radius of identity, the we characteristics of the entity inhibit man's basic primeval drives.  Legal, moral and ethical norms within the entity harness man's energies and set rules for the achievement of his goals which, because of the rules, he may not achieve.  At the confines of the entity, on the other side of the border, situations arise, especially when there is conflict and lack of understanding, which allow one entity to behave towards the other entity with no regard for its own normative constraints.  It perceives, on the other side of the border, a legal, moral and ethical depression into which its primeval instincts can flow.  It is the possibility of wastes in another country; of exporting contaminated or outdated food products the sale of which in the domestic market would be liable to legal sanctions.  In short graphic terms, it is the lure of bounties, of killing, raping and plundering. [14]

Indeed, the existence of this depression and its recurrence in periods of conflict in international relations can provide other social sciences with unique insight into the primal layers within man, whether civilized or not.

This depression can induce aggression as a method of economic organization for an entity. Attack on other entities can become the way of life of an entity.  Its main production consisting of making arms and preparing for expeditions.  The booties, plundering the stranger, being the source of supply and distributed among the members of the entity, making taxation of the tribe members less necessary:  the contributions of the tribe members geared towards the exploitation of the alien.  The warrior tribes must have existed in prehistory and crept into history.  But whether Vikings or Mongols, they were eventually resisted and settled down.  What, however, is important to retain is the concept of taking from the alien and distributing among one's own, permitting the controlling elements within the entity, as much as possible, not to tax their own base of support. (Thucydides)

Thus we move from warrior tribes to tax-collecting empires, colonizers and exploiters of resources and labor of the alien.  The model covers the dynamics of encounter at the micro as well as macro levels and can apply to the behavior of the different strata within an entity.  As and when access to the sources of supply from the "outside" becomes harder, the controlling strata may turn to taxation within their own domain, triggering a process of alienation of different strata needing coercive instruments and making the different components of the domain conscious of their particular radii of identity.

The possibility of giving free rein to primal behavior in the encounter between human entities depends, of course, on the circumstances.  Where the point of exhaustion of one is much farther than another and it overwhelms the other, once the depression is filled, the overwhelming power may open its own baggage of ethical, moral and legal norms and impose them on the entity it has overrun; or it may adopt some of the indigenous norms and eventually apply them -- with more or less modification -- on its own behavior towards those it has overcome.

Where the encounter and conflict is between powers which cannot overwhelm each other, the depression will be relative and, in time, a modus vivendi may develop between them relegating the primal outbursts between them to periods of its collapse.  The first "international treaties" must have been the coupling of pairs from the two sides.  Modus vivendi indeed: "marry-out" or be "killed-out" -- according to anthropologists, the origin of incest taboo and exogamy. [15]   A device used to reduce conflict between alien entities through the ages -- not always of much avail -- it mixed bloods but created conflicting property rights.  The last outstanding attempt in modern times was probably the marriage of Napoleon to Marie Louise of Austria in 1810.  "Modus vivendi" ultimately covers the development of international law or arrangements made between competing international corporations. [16]

Depression may not be only a perception in the relationship between two entities, but caused by the relaxation of a hitherto hegemonic outside pressure, control or order.  For example, during the heights of their control, empires could impose an order which reduced clashes between the components of their empires, only to surface when the controlling power of the empire was on the wane.  Such were periods of, Pax Sinica, Pax Persica, Pax Romana Pax Britannica or the recently defunct Pax Sovietica.

Depression can, from an absolute, i.e., a perception of total absence of legal, moral and ethical norms beyond the confines of the entity such as res nulius, become relative in the sense that there is the perception of less legal, moral and ethical norms beyond the frontier.  It can range from the attraction of the West for the Muslim upper classes in the Middle East who by coming to the West can indulge in activities which they forbid within their own culture, to the flow of capital from countries which have restrictive social and environmental laws to countries with more lenient legal systems in terms of health, social and environmental protection.

A collateral to the legal, moral and ethical depression is attraction.  It covers such drives as curiosity -- including that of the Rousseauean "noble savage" --, search and fear of the unknown and the adventurous spirit.  But above all it is triggered by the lure of actual and potential gain.  Hunters and gatherers may have fought over and claimed the fruits of the trees growing in the wild, but when some entities planted, their tended trees and fields and their granaries became much more attractive targets. [17] The first offering of an olive branch must have been made on practical grounds rather than as a symbolic peace gesture: plant your own tree and leave mine alone! (An olive branch, properly planted and cared for, grows into an olive tree.)  The settled entities may have tried to reason with the roaming invaders that the trees "belonged" to the settlers because they were the results of their agri-"culture" and their fruits were to be distributed according to their norms.  If the invaders were reasonable and understood the arguments of the settled agricultural communities, they either had to settle and grow their own trees and crops or roam where there were still fruit trees in the state of nature.

Some of the hunters and gatherers turned into nomads, others into agricultural communities.[18]   The different radii of identity and different cultures and tribes clashed.  The roaming people coveted the conserved riches of cumulative economies.  The latter built walls to protect themselves.  Sometimes the walls were overrun by the adventurers who, once settled within the walls, became conservers, other times the city dwellers -- the "civilized" -- chased the adventurers and made them settle. [19]   It is the story of the Aryans and the Dravidians, the Medes and the Persians, the Huns and the Han, Sumer and Akkad, the Greeks and the Minoans, the Romans and the Etruscans, the Germanic tribes and the Romans, the Mongols and the Ming, the Aztecs and the Toltecs and so on.

As they overrun and interpenetrate each other, some entities may manage to place their points of exhaustion farther afield.  The symbiosis may be detrimental to one or the other, or alter the nature of both.  Point of exhaustion includes the managerial and organizational potentials of an entity which include managing and utilizing the resources of the entities it has penetrated and absorbed.  Whether and how that exploitation and/or integration is materialized influences the outcome of the encounter.  The spectrum of possibilities has the coercive method at one end, enslaving the manpower and scorching the resources of the overwhelmed entity, and co-option at the other end.

Each of these approaches has different degrees of potentiality and different kinds of outcome under different circumstances depending on a number of factors including the compatibility of the radii of identity of the entities involved.  The coercive method may destroy or totally subdue the overwhelmed entity, expanding the domain of the dominant power and producing a hierarchically structured entity, as was, for example, the case of the Aryan invasion and conquest of the Dravidians in India.  But the coercive approach may also face resistance weakening, in the long run, the dominant power, such as was the case of the Ottoman Empire.

The co-optive method may eventually dilute the dominant power and it may, by its mixture of diversities, develop into a new strengthened version of the dominant power, as was the case, for example, of Normans in England. Along the spectrum we find variations on the theme with different dosages of coercive and co-optive approaches.  Throughout history some dosages have been instrumental in creating an élan permitting an entity to expand in proportions seemingly far exceeding its point of exhaustion.

ELAN

There have been times -- and they have been recurrent enough to create a pattern -- when human entities have burst into deeds far beyond what could have been reasonably expected of their usual point of exhaustion and ordinarily manageable economy.  The factor is what Tolstoy, in War and Peace identified as X:  The spirit of an army which permits it to overcome superior forces. [20]  We call it élan.  There is nothing supernatural about the phenomenon; but it is hard to measure and predict.  It is easier to identify retrospectively. [21]  Some events may not be due to an exceptional surge, -- which is the case of élan -- but results of changes in modes of production putting the point of exhaustion of an entity farther away and enabling it to overwhelm, clash or combine with other entities.  Such must have been the case of the invention of bow and arrow, development of the written word permitting long distance command and control, domestication of the horse, invention of chariots, firearms, building of sea-faring ships, and so on.

The line of distinction between the furtherance of point of exhaustion due to developments in modes of production and élan are at times blurred.  But distinguishing between the two is crucial for the understanding of the effects and the outcomes of different dynamics of encounter.  While point of exhaustion, as we shall see later, corresponds to the "ordinarily manageable economy" of an entity, élan refers to an entity's impetus beyond its ordinary means.   The difference is between the outburst of Jingiz Khan from the hills of Mongolia and the evolution of Germany from the Conferedation of the Rhine to Zollverein.  Jingiz Khan's was an élan which did not correspond to the ordinarily manageable economy of a pastoral society.  Zollverein, which united the different Länder with Prussia during the nineteenth century and created the German Empire, corresponded to the expansion of Germans' ordinarily manageable economy and the concomitant changes in their point of exhaustion.

Some circumstances and conjunctures may keep developments in the modes of production and social structures within the point of exhaustion, others may turn them into an élan.  In the nineteenth century, for example, due to technological advances -- railroads, telegraphy, mass production and new managerial methods  -- the European powers expanded their points of exhaustion, but by doing so they got in each other’s ways.  On the continent they accommodated their points of exhaustion through balance of power within the framework of the Holy Alliance. The stalemate among them in Europe made them use their newly acquired capacities to push their points of exhaustion farther out in other parts of the globe.[22]  Some of  their earlier outbursts into other continents had the characteristics of élan, but their nineteenth century expansions were more consistent with the development of their points of exhaustion.  When eventually the European balance of power collapsed into the First World War, the points of exhaustion of the Allies and Central powers collided on Ypres and in Verdun.

Elan should not be confused with certain "great events" which are the culmination of gathering storms, such as revolutions.  Changes in point of exhaustion and great events can, however, trigger an élan.  The American Revolution was caused by the discontent of the bourgeoisie in the Thirteen Colonies.  Only later did it turn into the élan of "Manifest Destiny."  The French Revolution, despite its potentials, did not turn into an élan to spread across Europe because those who  rode its crest, like Marat, Danton, Hébert, Saint Just, or Robespierre fought each other, and got swallowed in the waves, pulling the revolution under and paving the way for Napoleon’s imperial élan.  The ingredients of Napoleon's élan were his authoritarian and inspirational regime, his streamlining of the French economic and military power, the enthusiasm of his generals, the support of a bourgeoisie which during the height of his empire found new domains of activity, notably in the war economy, and the drumming up of the French ideals of liberty into the myth of liberating other peoples of Europe from the yoke of despotic monarchies.

Indeed, élan has to have most or all of those properties.  An extraordinary combination of inspirational leaders, streamlined and rationalized logistics, mobilized machinery of control and communications, motivated interest groups, dedicated and loyal followers, and enthusiastic and charged masses. The ingredients of point of exhaustion can be the same, without, necessarily, all the adjectives.  In élan, they are charged for a quantum leap.  A rider on a good horse can reasonably travel in one stretch some thirty kilometers at good speed.  Put relays at the point of exhaustion of each team, mobilize a corps of them, build good highways between the relays and you end up with the Achaemenids whose empire extended over three thousand kilometers.[23] That expanse was not the ordinarily manageable economy for agrarian civilizations.  A good deal of motivation and organization beyond the point of exhaustion of horsemen with bows and arrows was needed to cover that empire.

The imperium of an élan can last for centuries.  For that the leaders who have initiated the élan should have succeeded in coalescing the administrative and structural support of controlling interest groups and imbued them with, or disciplined and conditioned them to, a vision of grandeur corresponding to the imperium of the élan.  Circumstances and conjunctures dictate the temporal and spatial confines of an élan.  An empire may settle in its inertia after its initial élan and gradually subside into ordinarily manageable socio-economic entities some of which may reaffirm their particular radii of identity and challenge the empire from within until circumstances and conjunctures make it crumble.  World War I, for example, triggered the disintegration of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires and World War II that of the British, Dutch and the French Empires.

A superimposition of detailed maps of different élans at different epochs of their expansion, retraction, decay and disintegration can show the interpenetration of cultures and the dynamics of encounter between human entities from tribes to empires.  It will highlight changes, in the course of history, in the size of ordinarily manageable economies due to changes in the points of exhaustion of different human entities caused by developments in modes of production, improvement of means of control, management and administration.

ORDINARILY MANAGEABLE ECONOMY

The parameters of the concept of ordinarily manageable economy may have already emerged in the contexts in which it was mentioned. Cryptically, it was the horseman and the horse without the elaborate imperial relays and roads. When the hegemony of an élan subsides, the entities which were within its imperium may revert back to an ordinarily manageable economy, probably influenced, positively or negatively, by the residues of the élan.[24]  While changes in the modes of production and their concomitant points of exhaustion may generically change the nature of an entity, élan compounds different entities and serves as inseminator of cultures which could change the modes of production of different entities.  Ordinarily Manageable Economy is a variation on the theme of point of exhaustion, radius of identity and élan.  Its emphasis is on its qualifier of "ordinarily."  In terms of dynamics of encounter, the actual point of exhaustion of an entity, as discussed earlier, is the outer confine of an ordinarily manageable economy -- the latter being the inner realities of the entity as manifested in its culture and modes of production.  The tribal map of Africa, shown earlier, is an illustration of ordinarily manageable economies of African entities at a given level of modes of production permitting the survival of a tribe.  Notice the larger areas in the Sahara desert and smaller ones in fertile valleys and rain forests, showing at once the space which, depending on the natural environment, can sustain a critical mass to develop a radius of identity, and the confinement of the entities due to contiguity and accommodations and clashes of points of exhaustion.

The concept of ordinarily manageable economy has both static and dynamic implications.  While it implies the ordinary routine, it also implies the will to adapt to what is manageable, i.e., what becomes manageable due to new modes of production or changing circumstances.  We noted in our discussion of point of exhaustion that an entity may regress by not using its potentials to reach or regain its point of exhaustion.  The lack of will and flexibility to adapt can become detrimental to an entity.  Take, for example, the case of the Ik people in Uganda.  They had been successful nomadic bands of hunters and gatherers roaming an area stretching over the frontiers of Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Before World War II the British colonial administrators had assigned the mountainous northeast corner of Uganda as their settlement.  In the aftermath of decolonization and creation of "nation-states" in Africa, the Ik were deprived of their hunting grounds which became the Kidepo National Park in Kenya lying beyond the national frontiers within which the Ik were settled.  Nomadic hunting and gathering had been their ordinarily manageable economy.  Once deprived of it they disintegrated into scattered bands.[25]   The psychological resolve, flexibility and means to seek other ways for maintaining the cohesion of the entity had not materialized.

On the collapse of Nazi regime and Allied occupation after WW II, Germany's ordinarily manageable economy was that of subsistence.  Yet, contrary to the Ik, the Germans did not sit on the ashes of their cities.  The socio-psychological disposition of an entity is thus an integral part of its ordinarily manageable economy.  Of course, the characteristics of the occupying powers in Germany and the developments in the relations among them had a lot to do with what became of Germany.  Had the Allied powers agreed on and implemented the "Morgenthau Plan", Germany would have become "a country primarily agricultural and pastoral".[26]  The Germans would have probably become very good at it and turned their country into the granary for the world.  But as it turned out, the Cold War divided Germany into two parts and each developed its economy and culture influenced by the residues of the powers that overwhelmed it.  Circumstances and conjunctures had a lot of impact on the fate of the Germans.

The ordinarily manageable economy being the inner function of an entity's point of exhaustion, it can determine the outcome of the dynamics of encounter between entities.  The feudal system in Europe developed on the basis of prevailing ordinarily manageable economies.  The pledge of fealty by the vassals and tenants to their lord was an economic contract.  In its pragmatism it bonded the lord and the vassal as guardian and Stewart, father and child, and claimed loyalty and patriotism -- protection provided by the father-prince in exchange for the defense of the fatherland and patrimony.  The similarity of their modes of production, logistics and weapons defined the limits of the feudal princes' domains.

A concrete example of the correlation between ordinarily manageable economy, point of exhaustion and modi vivendi in the dynamics of encounter is the cannon-shot rule in international maritime law.[27]  The canon-shot rule was based on the assumption that the canon was in the arsenal of an entity and available as an item of its ordinarily manageable economy.  Indeed, as the cannon became part of the ordinarily manageable economy of some, they farthered their point of exhaustion and Europe ended up having entities bigger than the feudal states.

Thus, when due to new developments in technology and social and managerial organization, and new attitudes within some entities, the ordinarily manageable economy changes, a change in the composition and combination of those entities can occur.  As the advent of computers, communication satellites, automation and high speed transportation have made control of vast organizations and enterprises possible, in some regions of the world such as Europe, the sovereign nation-states, residues of an earlier ordinarily manageable economy -- that of trains, telegraphy and high-stack furnaces -- are giving up bits and pieces of their nation-state sovereignty  -- some kicking and screaming -- in order to adapt to what will become an ordinarily manageable economy: that of the European Economic Community.  Confinement within nation-state frontiers would have stultified Western European countries in the face of the United States and the Soviet Union and would have handicapped their use of available modes of production.  The Concorde, the Airbus, or the Ariane rocket would not have been economically feasible without international co-operation.  Computerized accounting can "ordinarily" manage many more accounts and transactions for a bank or means of control for a corporation than the European nation-states' boundaries can accommodate.

CIRCUMSTANCES AND CONJUNCTURES

We have used these terms often enough to owe an explanation.  The two terms are generally interchangeable.  But we have taken advantage of their etymological difference -- no hair splitting intended -- in order to impress two important variations in the environmental factors which indirectly influence the dynamics of encounter.

By circumstances (circum, surrounding + stare, being) we mean phenomena which surround a situation and influence it without being its direct input or outcome.  The OPEC countries play an important global role today because Western industrial countries discovered the means of exploration and exploitation of oil in the last century.

Conjuncture (com, together + iungere, connect) represents the impact of an unpredicted phenomenon on the course of an event.  The decimation of Napoleon's expeditionary forces by Jean Jacques Desalines in Haiti in 1803 was a conjuncture which nudged Napoleon to agree to the Louisiana Purchase.  Had Napoleon's forces suppressed the Haitian revolt and proceeded to the Louisiana Territory as originally planned by Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson would have had more difficulty acquiring the French territories.

Circumstances and conjunctures remain among the greatest imponderables in the dynamics of encounter. [28]   They are not, of course, unique to international relations.  Indeed, the fate of man and his universe has depended on them.  The beguiling of Eve by the subtle serpent to eat from the tree of knowledge must have been an unpredicted and undesirable conjuncture for God.  Or, if you prefer the Big Bang, it seems that a flaw in the parity mirror of matter and antimatter may have been responsible for the existence of the universe.[29]  Faith and particle physics aside, from within a situation it is not easy to appraise circumstances and conjunctures which can have a bearing upon it.  Although, it seems that it would be more likely to make contingencies for conjunctures, because their eventuality lies ahead.  Circumstances may lie far beyond the perceivable temporal and spatial confines of a situation.  Perception, of course, is relative.  Within the dynamics of encounter the entities involved will have a perception of what the circumstances and conjunctures are and may be.  Those perceptions, whether they correspond to actual circumstances and conjunctures, will have an impact on the dynamics of encounter and their outcome and will in turn qualify circumstances and conjunctures.  But because of the subjectivity of the perspectives of the entities involved, their perceptions may be different from those of independent observers elsewhere in time and space.

In the historical context, establishing the outer limits of circumstances and conjunctures is of crucial importance at once for the relevance, reliability and manageability of an analysis of international phenomena.  How far in time and space one needs to go to make a correct assessment of given situations and probabilities?  In the Mujahedins' bid for power in Afghanistan, for example, were the election of Reagan in 1980 to the United States presidency, Khomeyni's revival of Islamic fanticism, Zia's support or Gorbachev's Perestroika significant and sufficient circumstances to consider?  Or, does the understanding of Afghan situation require a Knowledge of the circumstances and conjunctures which go back to the tribo-cultural strifes within Afghanistan at least to the end of the eighteenth century, the Anglo-Russo-Persian rivalries in that country in the nineteenth century, the religious dimension of Afghan resistance to outside influence -- particularly British up to the Second World War -- and the growing Soviet interest in Afghanistan after the Bolshevik Revolution and then since the Second World War?

The corollary to circumstances and conjunctures is, of course, the fact that an entity creates certain circumstances and conjunctures beyond its own control. For example, the United States' drive in the Seventies to "privatize" the flow of capital for the development of the Third World -- notably, at the early stages, with petrodollars -- without adequate international intergovernmental organizational control, created the circumstances for mismanagement and capital flight from developing countries and the international debt crisis.

Our examples beg the question of the role different factors play in the outcome of events. Among other things, the success or failure of the Mujahedin will very much depend on the potentials for understanding and agreement among the different radii of identity which they represent.  The fact that the flow of international finance into the developing countries resulted in mismanagement and capital flight had to do, in part, with the prevailing cultural patterns in those countries and the compatibility of development projects with their ordinarily manageable economies.

ACTORS AS FACTORS

One of the handicaps of modern scientific discourse is scientific advocacy:  factors instead of actors.  This is not the method of this inquiry.  It is true that that kind of advocacy and militancy sharpens the focus of an argument; but it renders it narrow and vulnerable.  Actors are, undeniably, crucial components of global human dynamics and we shall treat them so.  Our point is that they are a component of the whole and more of a factor themselves, molded by and molding the other factors.

Of course, we first need to identify actors and define the term.  Was Hitler an actor?  Were the Nazis the actors?  How do we qualify them?  Or was it Germany?  How does Germany act?  Or is it the Germans?  Which Germans?  Those within Germany; or are those feeling German but living elsewhere also actors?  Was Albert Einstein an actor inglobal human dynamics?  We have here a range of possible actors.

From another perspective we could ask what if Hitler had been admitted to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and had started on the path of an artist painter?  Would conjunctures and circumstances of the time and socio-political and economic factors have created another Hitler?   What if the Soviet Politburo had chosen Viktor Grishin instead of Mikhael Gorbachev in 1985? [30]  Would there have been glasnost and perestroika?  One could, of course, object to "what ifs" as unscientific speculation.  History, one could say, happened the way it did.  But if we want to know who its actors were, we do need to know how they came to be actors.  That inquiry is of particular value to current actors who would like, and try, to control the future flow of events -- and whose efforts can throw light on the acting of actors.

My personal experience, although of little significance in proportion to the players at hand, may make a documented point.  The CIA files indicate that long before becoming an American, as a young foreign student in Geneva, Switzerland, I was checked out and found to be often "in the company of a well-known unidentified communist"!  I haven't been able to recall who that well-known unidentified communist was, but his presence in my life was reason enough for CIA to discard me for whatever purpose it was looking me over.  Ironically, and probably due to the same image I was projecting as a student leader, a few years later some Soviet colleagues insinuated their interest in my collaboration and were disappointed when I told them that my inclinations were towards free enterprise capitalism and multi-party democracy!  While I did not turn out to be material for collusion and conspiracy, what was significant in my case was the extent to which the present "actors" were trying to mold the possible outcome of the future.  Other young small potatoes were surely eligible and ready to play the game.  We know of famous cases such as that of the evaluation of Hitler by the United States in the 1920's.[31]  And there are more celebrate cases since WW II.  Such cases point to the fact that clear cut sorting of actors and who is being acted upon is not a simple proposition.

  Beyond the efforts of some actors to influence other actors, the difficulty to identify actors as free agents is compounded by the effect of actions by other actors not directed at them.  Glasnost and Perestroika led to the demise of Soviet Union which reduced the threats of cold war. That resulted in arms reduction by the United States and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).  The two adversaries have began disengaging from some of their strategic positions and are looking for ways to unload their conventional weapons on the international market and make money instead of destroying them. The arms manufacturers are also scurrying to find new markets.  The Middle Eastern countries are buying, so are the countries in South East Asia who are trying to arm to compensate for the vacuum created by the disengagement of the super powers.   In these instances, the particular actions of the United States and CIS are circumstances and conjunctures influencing the future course of action of the countries of the Middle East and South East Asia who will become different "actors" than they would have been otherwise.

Speaking of actors as factors, we have raised a few questions; notably,  1. nature/nurture: Does an entity concoct leaders or do leaders drag an entity into a given direction?   2. Definition of an entity: Does an entity spill over, or should it and can it be contained for study?  3. The different weights within the entity:  Is a part (a party, a class, a cast etc.) or parts within the entity the actor(s), or is it its whole with all its heterogeneities that should be examined as an actor?  4. Levels of involvement: Are personalities and people who are not directly involved in relations between entities actors?; or are they factors?; i.e., creating circumstances and conjunctures affecting the dynamics of encounter between the entities? (If Einstein, Ferni and Oppenheimer had not collaborated to develop the atom bomb, would things have turned out different?)  5. Actors as circumstances and conjunctures:  When do actors become a factor for other actors?

There are no straightforward simple answers to any of these questions.  Their scrutiny takes us back to the amalgam of factors enumerated in this chapter.  The behavior of an entity as an actor is dependent on the factors.  The evolution of an actor or a group of actors has to do with that or those actor(s)’ perception of their radius of identity, the potentials of their ordinarily manageable economy or their élan, their moral, ethical and legal perspective of other entities and other factors.  We noted earlier that history happened the way it did.  But observation also shows that history repeats itself.  Why does history repeat itself?  Because when you make a stew you put the same general ingredients in it.  The ingredients of the stew of global human dynamics are the factors, actors included.  For our inquiry, we cannot focus only on the point where entities encounter each other.  In order to understand the dynamics of those encounters, we need to get into the pot and see how the factors are churned within the entities.  We propose to do that in the next chapter.

[1] This chapter is based on a paper read at the faculty seminar of the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics in October 1989. As a stand alone paper it concluded with the following summary:

A canvas emerges with different shades and hues revealing encounters between entities with different "radii of identity" who reach their "point of exhaustion" before overrunning and absorbing the other(s).  As their identities differ, in their encounter the entities experience different degrees of "understanding misunderstanding and agreement-disagreement."  They also perceive a "relative lack of legal, moral and ethical restraints" – a "depression" – in the norms of conduct beyond the confines of their own identity as well as an "attraction" fueled by their curiosity, sense of adventure, and search and fear of the unknown.  These factors provide the bases for the formulation of an entity's survival and security needs beyond its own confines.

An observation of historical facts points to instances when extraordinary dispositions within an entity create an "élan" and permit it to expand far beyond its "ordinarily manageable economy".  These instances account for the overwhelming potentials of certain empires which, in their ebbs and flows, created networks encompassing and linking a large number of entities with different radii of identity causing cross-cultural inseminations.  Beyond the extraordinary sway of élan, however, the ordinarily manageable economy is the underlying factor which determines the nature and characteristics of an entity's more realistic parameters.  Ordinarily manageable economy changes with the development of new modes of production and control: from flint to electronics.  And finally, encounters between entities do not take place in vacuum but in the context of what surrounds and influences them: "circumstances"; and what lays on their course: "conjunctures".  (The section on “Actors as Factors” was added in 1992.) In anticipation of future chapters the reader may wish to refer to the Syllabus.

[2] See Paul Claval, "Ideologie Territoriale et Ethnogenèse," and Raimondo Strassoldo, "Regionalism and Ethnicity: the Case of Friuli," in International Political Science Review, Vol. VI, Nr. 2, (1985) pp. 161-170 and 197-215.

[3] The terms we shall use in our description of factors are not common in “international relations” vocabulary.  While our terms will evoke familiar concepts, they are chosen in order not to be confounded with more familiar terms, permitting the reader to think of new frameworks.  An "entity" in our lingo will evoke a nation-state, but it could be more or less.  The terms we have chosen are otherwise not engraved in stone and once the idea is conveyed our goal is achieved.

[4] Shaw, Group Dynamics, 3rd Ed., McGraw Hill, New York, 1981, pp. 4 - 7 and p. 456 Critical mass implies potentials for the formation, at some point, of an entity with an "ordinarily manageable economy", discussed later, which permits it to develop its own sense of belonging and radius of identity.

[5]  We are obviously trying to put down the basics.  Kroeber and Kluckhohn write: "Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior, acquired and transmitted by symbols constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of future action." A.L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn, "Culture: a Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions," in Papers of Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, XLVII,1, (1952) p. 181.  Our use of the terms culture and tribe covers structures, functions and way of life as treated by scholars such as Douglas, Eisenstadt or Wildavsky. See, for example, Mary Douglas, “Identity: Personal and Socio-Cultural”, in Anita Jacobson Widding (ed), Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology, 1983, V, pp. 35-46, S.N. Eisenstadt, M. Abitbol and N. Chazan, "Cultural Premises, Political Structures and Dynamics," in International Political Science Review, VIII, 4, (October 1987), pp.291-306, and Aaron Wildavsky, "Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation," in American Political Science Review, LXXXI,1, (March 1987), pp. 3-21. By emphasizing the derivatives of tribe in terms of social organization we mean to cover social distributive patterns and interest groups -- what Mancur Olson calls” distributional coalitions" -- see his The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 43-47 passim.

[6] Factors which in international law are identified as jus soli and jus sanguinis, respectively.

[7] Kautilya observed the phenomenon back in 300 B.C. and in Arthashastra made a theory of it:  "The king who is situated anywhere immediately on the circumference of the conqueror's territory is termed the enemy.  The king who is likewise situated to the enemy, but separated from the conqueror only by the enemy is termed the friend..."

[8] For an excellent depiction of the case see Sheehan, Niel, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, New York, Random House, 1988.

[9] Paul Kennedy provides a few examples at the "macro" level in his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York, Random House, 1987.  The problem with the revival of a decaying point of exhaustion may well be the fact that the entity does not use its resources for the furtherance of its point of exhaustion or uses them in a way not conducive to regeneration -- in the cases covered by Kennedy for military expansion.

[10]Collected Papers of John Westlake on Public International Law, -- Chapters on the Principles of  International Law, (1894) Ch. IX, Cambridge, 1914, pp. 136-157, 177-181.

[11] Chagnon, Napoleon A., "Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population," in Science, CCXXXIX, (26 February 1988), pp. 985-992.

[12]  Rivers, W.H.R. (ed), Essays on the Depopulation of Melanesia, Ch. VIII, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1922.

[13] The inevitability of conflict between human entities has been considered a given of human existence throughout history, from the Legalists of China, Thucydides and Aristotle through Machiaveli and Hobbes to social Darwinists and modern realists.  See, for example, Simmel, Georg, Sociology, translated by Kurt H. Wolff, Glencoe, Ill., The Free Press, 1950 and Spykman, Nicholas J. The Social Theory of Georg Simmel, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1925,  Gumplowitz, Ludwig, Der Rassenkampf, (1883), Innsbruck, 1909,  Davie, Maurice R., The Evolution of War: A Study of Its Role in Early Societies, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929, Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense: A General Theory, New York, Harper and Row, 1962, Dahrendorf, Ralf, "Toward a Theory of Social Conflict," in Journal of Conflict Resolution, II, (June 1958), pp. 170-183, Fried M., M. Harris, and R. Murphy (eds), War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression, Natural History Press, Garden City, N.Y., 1965, Lockhart, Charles, "Problems in the Management and Resolution of International Conflicts," in World Politics, XXIX, (April 1977) and Wildavsky, who writes: "Hence, cultural theory may be distinguished by a necessity theorem: conflict among cultures is a precondition of cultural identity." op. cit. p. 7.

[14] See, for example, Werner Levi, "The Relative Irrelevance of Moral Norms in International Politics," in Social Forces, XLIV, (December 1965), pp. 226-33, reprinted in Walter M. Gerson (ed.),  Social Problems in a Changing World, New York, Crowell, 1969.

[15] Taylor, Sir Edward B., "On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions; applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent," in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XVIII, (1889), p.
267.

[16] See, for example, Anthony Sampson, The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Shaped, New York, Bantam, 1975, p. 87.

[17] Jacquetta Hawkes, and Sir Leonard Woolley, Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization (Volume I of UNESCO's History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind), London, Allen and Unwin, 1963, p. 404 passim.

[18] The debate as to how that happened is -- and will probably be -- going on among anthropologists. For a recent wrap-up see Roger Lewin "New Views Emerge on Hunters and Gatherers," in Science, CCXL, (27 May 1988), pp. 1146-1147.

[19] For a discussion of "the adventurer and the conserver" see A. Khoshkish, The Socio-Political Complex: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Social Life, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1979, pp. 145 et.seq.

[20] Part Fourteen, I & II.

[21] Our concept of élan should not be confused with Henri Bergson's élan vital.  While our concept corresponds to some Bergsonian attributes such as the openness of the field of élan's expansion, see his L'Evolution Créatrice, Paris, Alcan, 1907, our concept does not necessarily produce the Bergsonian moral products such as Christian charity –  nor does his, necessarily, but it has a greater likelihood of doing so.  See his Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion, Paris, Alcan, 1932.  Mareshal Ferdinand Foch of France, Commander of the Allied forces in WW I believed in factoring in élan into the French army  as a compensation for the German army's superiority in matériel and discipline.

[22] Cohen, Benjamin J., The Question of Imperialism: The Political Economy of Dominance and Dependence, New York, Basic Books, 1973.

[23] 550-330 B.C., see Herodotus, History of Greek and Persian Wars, Book V. 52.

[24] In 443 B.C. the Athenians, inspired by the grand visions of Pericles, established a pan-Hellenic colony at Thurii in southern Italy.  The idea was to expand the Hellenic culture.  The colony was given a model Greek constitution and was populated by peoples from all over Greece.  In a few years, however, the peoples divided back into their original tribes and the Athenian leaders and organizers had to abandon the project and return to Athens.  The Athenian élan had not managed to maintain itself and the people reverted back to what had been their ordinarily manageable economy.  See Zimmern, Alfred, The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth-Century Athens, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1931, pp.
374-5.

[25] Turnbull, Colin M., The Mountain People, New York, Simon and Schuster (Touchstone), 1972.

[26] The plan had been conceived by Henry J. Morgenthau Jr., U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and endorsed by Roosevelt and Churchill in Quebec on September 15, 1944.  According to the plan, all German industrial plants and equipment not destroyed by the war were to be dismantled and removed in order to eliminate Germany as an industrial and military power. Wilmot, Chester, The Struggle for Europe, New York, Harper and Row, 1952, Colophon Edition, 1963, p. 548 et seq.

[27] In his De dominio maris dissertatio, (1703), the Dutch jurist C. van Bynkershoek wrote: "On the whole it seems a better rule that the control of the land over the sea be as far as cannon will carry, because that seems to be as far as we have both command and possession.  I am speaking, however, of our times, in which we use those instruments of warfare, otherwise, I would say that the control of the sea from the land ends where the power of men's weapons ends," ch. II.  In the course of the centuries, Bykershoek's statement has inspired nation-states to claim territorial seas corresponding to their possible means of control.

[28] Circumstances and Conjunctures have preoccupied scholars using different methods of analysis.  For those using recent systems, game and quantitative approaches see, for example, Rosecrance, op. cit., Schelling, Thomas C., Arms and Influence, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1966, where he makes the distinction between a situation where one entity deliberately challenges another and a situation into which entities are drawn due to the course of events, p.121;  Maillard, Pierre, "The effect of China on Soviet-American Relations," in Soviet-American Relations and World Order: The Two and the Many, Adelphi papers, No. 6, London, London Institute for Strategic Studies, 1970; and Schrodt, Philip A. and Alex Mintz, "The Conditional Probability Analysis of International Events Data," in American Journal of Political Science, XXXII,1, (February 1988), pp.215-230, where the authors attempt to quantify circumstances and conjunctures on the basis of research made on dyadic action and interaction by others.

See, for example, Azar, Edward E., "The Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB)," Journal of Conflict Resolution, XXIV, pp. 143-52, etc.  It should be added that these attempts at quantification of factors of the dynamics of encounter, interesting intellectual exercises as they are, have not as yet become conclusive alternatives for human learning, understanding, analysis and reasoning.

[29] Adair, Robert K., "A Flaw in a Universal Mirror", in Scientific American, CCLVIII, 2, (February 1988),  pp. 50-56.

[30] Robert G. Kaiser, Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and His failure, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 80-86.  See also Boris Yeltsin, Against the Grain: An Autobiography, New York, Summit Books, 1990, pp. 138-9 where he disputes Grishin's or Romanov's chances to win.

[31] See, notably, the account of the evaluation by Robert Murphy, U.S. acting consulate in Munich; Hitler's meeting with U.S. military attaché Captain Truman Smith in 1922 and Hanfstaengl’s chaperoning of Hitler in John Toland, Adolf Hitler, New York, Random House, 1976.  See also Alan Bullock,  Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, New York, Bantam, 1961, p. 55; and Joachim C.Fest, Hitler, New York, Vintage, 1975, p. 133