The rules of international law governing the legality of the use of force by states (ius ad bellum) and the rales by which international law regulates the actual conduct of hostilities once the use of force has begun (ius in bello) have seldom sat happily together. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, some international lawyers took the view that the development of the ius ad bellum by the Charter of the United Nations had rendered the ius in bello superfluous. This view has, not surprisingly, become somewhat less fashionable of late and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the 1977 Protocols to those Conventions, and a number of other treaties bear witness to the continuing interest of the international community in regulating the conduct of warfare. Nevertheless, the suspicion remains that ius in bello should have been absorbed by ius ad bellum, that the two subjects are somehow in competition, so that discussion of the former distracts attention from the more fundamental requirements of the latter or implies a lack of confidence in it. Thus, one letter published in The Times at the height of the Falklands conflict castigated international lawyers for engaging in a debate about the law concerning the treatment of prisoners of war on the ground that they should have been devoting their attention to questioning the legality of the whole operation mounted by the United Kingdom.

What do Third World countries want? More wealth. How can they get it? By adopting more economically rational policies. What should the North do? Facilitate these policies. How should the North approach global negotiations? With cautious optimism. What is the long term prognosis for North–South relations? Hopeful, at least if economic development occurs. This is the common wisdom about relations between industrialized and developing areas in the United States and much of the rest of the North, Within this fold there are intense debates among adherents of conventional liberal, reformist liberal, and interdependence viewpoints. But the emphasis on economics at the expense of politics, on material well-being as opposed to power and control, pervades all of these orientations.

In recent years there has been a marked tendency to assess French foreign policy in terms of continuity and change in the aims, organization and actions associated with General de Gaulle and his pursuit of national independence. Analysts have found that in spite of major personality differences between de Gaulle, Pompidou9 Giscard d'Estaing and Mitterrand, and a presidential system of government that maximizes the opportunities for personal direction,, there has been paradoxically a high degree of continuity in French foreign and defence policies. Until recently it was possible to account for this by emphasizing the influence of the GauIIist party in government and the National Assembly, but now that it is no longer the largest party nor enjoying a share in power it is necessary to seek other explanations for continuity in policy. Moreover, the return to power in 1981 of men of the Fourth Republic who continue to maintain many of their predecessors’ policies reveals the inadequacy of Gaullism as a basis for analysis and the need for terms of reference allowing for a longer view of the French role in world affairs. If that role has been so consistent in spite of changes in society, economy, political leadership and even regime is it not time to seek reasons for continuity by analysing external influences on French foreign and defence policies in the light of international relations theory? This is particularly appropriate in view of current French interest in systemic approaches to international politics. The intention here is to examine some relevant developments in the theoretical study of the international system and to consider their implications for existing interpretations and future study of French foreign policy and its claim to independent The French case is of obvious relevance to the situation of other middle-sized powers pursuing an ambitious role in world affairs, yet finding access to power and independence severely restricted.

One of the most striking differences between British defence policy since 1945 and military policy during the inter-war period has been the acceptance by post-war Labour and Conservative governments of the value of undertaking a continental commitment. During the 1920s and 1930s Britain clearly retained a close interest in European affairs but consistently steered away from any form of major military involvement on the continent,, In traditional terms policy makers continued to recognize the importance of maintaining a favourable Balance of power in Europe and preventing any hostile state from dominating the Low Countries, At the same time there was also a fundamental political assumption that Britain and France would be in alliance in the event of renewed German aggression in Western Europe. Until Munich, however, the emphasis in defence planning centred on home and imperial defence. True, there were those in the defence establishment who recognized that Britain's vital interests were closely linked to Western Europe and who advocated serious preparation of an expeditionary force. But even they failed to recommend the kind of highly mobile mechanized force for specialized European operations which might have avoided the magnitude of the disasters which befell British forces in 1939–40. After Munich the British government did arrive at a recognition of the importance of some form of continental commitment but by then it was clearly too late either to create an expeditionary force of the kind required or to supplement Britain's military weakness through the establishment of an effective western alliance system.

In the introduction to his Principles of Political Economy John Stuart Mill wrote, 'there are no practical questions, even among those which approach nearest to the character of purely economical questions which admit of being decided on economical premises alone'. He was expressing no more than what he considered to be the conventionally held wisdom of the day.