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Most in International Relations today, whatever their view of structural realism, would agree with Robert Jervis that Waltz's theory is "the most truly systemic of our theories of international politics." I argue that it is, in fact, the antithesis. Waltz, despite his systemic starting point, produced an analytic theory. Waltz's redefinition of a system as "composed of a structure and of interacting units" replaced the "systemic" understanding of a system as parts of particular types related in particular ways to make a whole with emergent properties with an analytic model of characterless units interacting with one another and with a reified structure. Waltz, I argue, was led to this stunning reversal by his application of: a levels and units frame; a reified conception of structure; a mistaken exclusion of the attributes of units that make them parts of the system; a vision of systems as derivative constraints on otherwise more or less autonomous units; and certain peculiar ideas about the nature of theory. In the final section, I argue that "relationalism" today is not merely reviving, but extending, "systemic" approaches in International Relations and is now poised to make the sort of transformative contribution that Waltz promised but did not deliver.

In this age of the overarching globalization and increased public sensitivity, conflict resolution is becoming more and more demanding both in terms of its goals and its techniques. The war has become almost forbidden, and old schemes of justifying wars no longer appear satisfying. Justifying war always seemed to be a hopeless task: at the same time impossible and necessary. Being tragic and often also absurd throughout the history, war is now facing the challenge of a change its very definition. Its nature of unpredictability and irreversibility, its constitutive rules of victory and defeat, seem to be in the process of an extensive change, with new aspects and issues emerging: criminalization of war, new ways of justifying military interventions, and a huge set of instruments of justifying "asymmetric wars", "wars on terror", pre-emptive and preventive wars, peace-making and peace-keeping activities, regime change strategies, etc. Just War Theory and its justificatory capacity is (again) at the crossroad: is it a new chance to further its development, or a sign of its end? These and other issues regarding contemporary debate about the war are worth further exploration from the philosophical point of view.

Asserts that historical sociology has advanced the theorizing of international relations, contending that neorealist theories of international systems are plagued by three problems: (1) National & international states are juridically separate. (2) Mandated by the condition of anarchy, individual actors in the international system exhibit similar behavioral patterns. (3) The notion of the international system is not operationalized. Consequently, an approach based on historical sociology that repudiates neorealist theories of international systems is advocated. Such an approach acknowledges that systems lack meaning beyond the self-understanding of a given system's actors. Three directions for historical sociology inquiries into international systems are recommended: (A) Create a taxonomy of systems. (B) Explain why certain systems dominate at certain points in time. (C) Completely analyze the behavioral patterns of the elements that constitute a particular system. 64 References. J. W. Parker