The first issue of Ethics & International Affairs was published in 1987, when the Cold War still dominated international affairs. It was appropriate at that time to launch the journal with an issue devoted in part to the theme “superpower ethics.” In his introduction to the topic Nye argues that the challenge of establishing an ethics for the United States and the Soviet Union is not met by any traditional Western system. Aristotle's “virtue,” Kant's “good intent,” and the “good result” of the consequentialists are inadequate to the task of determining right on the superpower playing field. In reference to this insufficiency, Nye sketches the arguments of the subsequent articles by Mazrui, Hassner, and Hoffman, each of whom offers an instructive picture of the state of superpower ethics.

At odds in 1987 were the philosophies of a United States grounded in political liberalism and a Soviet Union grounded in economic redistribution. While these principles may have defined these two nations' domestic policies and official international stances, Mazrui argues that the United States did little to propagate liberalism and the Soviet Union did little to encourage economic redistribution. Moreover, his critique seeks to reveal that each superpower's actions ultimately supported the other's philosophy. From this twist of intent and effect, Mazrui turns to the proclivity toward violence that the United States and the Soviet Union displayed in international affairs. Consequently, he calls into question the ethical justification of the means by which the superpowers repeatedly failed to accomplish their intended ends.

The European community holds a range of contradictory, changing, and evolving views of the United States and the Soviet Union. Hassner notes that the United States is seen both as an individualistic agent with a guilty conscience that intervenes irresponsibly and hypocritically, and as a model for resistance to oppression. The Soviet Union is also viewed antithetically, both condemned for totalitarianism and praised as more humanistic than the United States. Hassner sees these oppositions as reflecting the profound differences between the superpowers and indicating the challenge the United States and the Soviet Union face in establishing a common ethics.

International systems have historically come in two forms: those based on the balance of power and those of a revolutionary nature, including systems organized around bipolar competition. Hoffmann finds the world order of 1987 to contain both these systems and judges it both ambiguous and original. While the tension of these extremes can make the world appear “anarchical,” there are certain agreed upon rules by which the superpowers interact. These rules ultimately preserve order by embracing competition between the United States and the Soviet Union; superpower confrontation is prevented by each nation holding to their own ideals and sovereignty while embracing nuclear deterrence. Having revealed the rules of the superpower game, Hoffmann then subjects them to ethical judgment. Despite the historic duration of peace between superpowers that seems to have been sustained by these rules, Hoffmann finds them both ethically flawed and ultimately unstable. Turning to a brief consideration of United States foreign policy, he points to particular moral difficulties in U.S. stances and urges the development of superpower rules that are effective and ethical.

A prominent feature of American political consciousness is a desire to propagate democracy throughout the world. In our enthusiasm to share what we enjoy, Jacques Barzun sees that little attention is paid to exactly what we are trying to distribute. Through a brief historical survey of democracy, he shows that our popular conception of the term does not correspond with any particular definition. U.S. democracy has no central text and is distinctly different, in theory and in practice, from the democracy of other states, both historical and contemporary. Democracy is an abstract ideal that is a function of time. Its present incarnation in the United States emphasizes freedom and equality through the means and language of specific personal rights. Barzun sees an internal tension in this formulation, one that ultimately threatens both freedom and equality if exported to the rest of the world.

Third World debt, seen as distant from the realm of international affairs and ethics, is often subject to abstract economic analysis. Peter Bauer argues that in fact the way in which debt is addressed by debtors and lenders is heavily politicized and should be subject to ethical considerations. Many Third World countries choose to prolong debt even though they are capable of repaying it; moreover, the methods of gauging and reporting current income are spurious and subject to manipulation by countries' trade policies. The ethical questionability of some Third World practices is matched by equally questionable activity in the West. Special interest groups' agendas and banks' eyes for profits influence economic policy in favor of Third World countries, further increasing their debt. Bauer's discussion of these issues of denial and permissiveness depicts Third World debt as a political transaction that wrongly escapes ethical judgement.

In the past nine years the Islamic Republic of Iran has posed the most difficult of all foreign policy problems for the United States—a problem usually confronted by marriage counselors rather than diplomats, for Iran is the nation that the United States cannot live with and cannot live without.

A statesman's responsibility to act morally while remaining politically fastidious is a primary difficulty in international relations. Theories that provide definitive guidance for political morality are often viewed with suspicion and considered unrealistic. Coll, in opposition to this dismissive approach, sees in the Christian worldview three core values that can be used to discern moral political actions: the importance of history, the ubiquity of tragedy, and practical wisdom. Coll explicates the Christian tradition that informs each of these values and considers their pertinence in international relations today. He goes on to extract some general prescriptions for foreign policy, showing that these core values speak to military action, immigration, foreign aid, and the environment.

Human rights is one of three issues addressed by the Helsinki Accord, alongside security and trade matters. In the mid-seventies the accord was greeted with enthusiasm by the Soviet Union, which saw it as a means to reduce the U.S. presence in Europe. The United States, which played a limited role in drafting the accord, feared it might result in a betrayal of the various nationalities of Eastern Europe by its tacit acceptance of Soviet territorial arrangements. Over the next ten years the human rights section of the accord would become a central point of contention between the superpowers. Korey traces the evolution of the dispute and discusses Gorbachev's uneven attempts to improve the Soviet Union's recognition of human rights.

Kratochwil argues that a social-scientific study of the behavior of regimes, and how they exercise power, is a useful method to challenge the exaggerated view of international relations as a “normless anarchy.” By showing how “expectations” dictate action in international affairs, his method asserts the existence of a universal force among nations.

Luxmoore reviews the post-World War II history of the Catholic church in Poland, its relations with the communist government, its stand on the Solidarity movement, and its behavior during the period of martial law. Despite the restraining force of totalitarianism, Poland's religiosity evolved swiftly in the forty years after the war, producing a pope and empowering an enduring and peaceful political movement.

The Soviet ruling class, thwarted in its expansionist aims and beset by economic ills, sought to enjoy the fruits of Western culture without risking war, by a policy of “Finlandization” or neutralization of Europe. Phillips, writing in 1987, maintains that NATO had as great a moral duty to check this political ambition as it had to check Soviet military aggression. He suggests ways to reaffirm the rule of law and the commitment to social justice and to build such values into Western foreign policy, rather than use them as public relations tinsel.