Close ties are also a source of vulnerability and a potential cause of conflict.

First, and most obviously, the present emergency reminds us that states are still the main actors in global politics.

hen new dangers arise, however, humans look first and foremost to national governments for protection. After 9/11, Americans didn’t turn to the United Nations, Microsoft Corp., or Amnesty International to protect them from al Qaeda; they looked to Washington and the federal government.


Second, although the more structural versions of realism tend to downplay differences among states (apart from relative power), thus far responses to the coronavirus outbreak are exposing the strengths and weakness of different types of regimes. Scholars have previously suggested that rigid dictatorships are more vulnerable to famines, epidemics, and other disasters, largely because they tend to suppress information and top officials may not recognize the gravity of the situation until it is too late to prevent it.

Lastly, foreign-policy realism also suggests that if the epidemic does not subside quickly and more or less permanently (as the 2003 SARS epidemic did), it will reinforce the growing trend toward deglobalization that is already underway.


Liberal theorists have long argued that increasing interdependence between states would be a source of prosperity and an obstacle to international rivalry. By contrast, realists warn that close ties are also a source of vulnerability and a potential cause of conflict. cWhat Waltz and Niebuhr are saying is that ever-tighter connections between states create as many problems as they solve, sometimes more quickly than we can devise solutions for them

コロナ問題が世界を席巻するなか、結局、国際社会の主体は国家であり個人が頼りにできるのも国家であるが、国家といっても、イランや中国をみればわかるように、独裁主義は情報の流通を抑圧するから、危機に対処できない、ということがわかったのではないか。国際社会はグローバリズムの完成にむかっておらず、リアリストが警告していたように、密な関係は、脆弱性の源泉となり、また、紛争の潜在的原因にもなるのだ、とーーーこりゃ、日本と韓国にもあてはまるな、はやいところ、政治的距離おいたほうがいいな。