A distinctive feature of the evolution of the modern international system has been the emergence of ideologies so universalist in their assumptions that they have ignored, or worse, denied the cultural and political diversities of mankind—diversities which constitute the ineluctable framework of international politics and which make the conduct of foreign affairs such a complex and difficult craft. One major obstacle, however, to understanding the problems which this development poses for the theory and practice of international relations is the fact that the correct usage of the term ‘ideology’ is very much broader than that which is generally accepted today.

‘Who is the founder of modern international relations theory?’ is a popular question and much ink has been spilt trying to answer it. JL C. Scott championed Vitoria's claim to the title; T. E. Holland, Gentili's; Hedley Bull, Grotius's. Whatever the merits of these and similar claims, they do little to explain the origins and evolution of modern international relations theory. They may describe pieces of the puzzle, but they do not, either individually or collectively, reassemble those pieces to reveal the nature of the whole development. It is the aim of this article to redress, in some small measure, this comparative neglect.

David Davies, or Lord Davies as he became in 1932, was a remarkable man who achieved some remarkable things. In the academic sphere he is perhaps best remembered for his founding of the Chair and Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth, but establishing a new university discipline was only part of a larger vision and concern: that of securing, no less, the peace of the world. Lord Davies was not alone in this, nor in the inter-war period did such an endeavour appear as farfetched and quixotic as it does when viewed from the more sceptical and worldly-wise perspective of the late twentieth century. There were many who harboured similar ideas and ideals, but few had the energy, time and money to do what he did in attempting to translate thoughts and hopes into schemes of positive action.

According to Fred Halliday's ‘Vigilantism in International Relations: Kubálková, Cruickshank and Marxist theory’ (Review of International Studies, Volume 13, Number 3, July 1987) our article entitled ‘The ‘New Cold War’ in ‘critical International Relations studies’’ (Review of International Studies, Volume 12, Number 3, July 1986) along with the rest of our work suffer from serious defects. It appears according to Halliday that we ‘do not understand’, we ‘wouldn't understand’, ‘couldn't understand’, nor could our readers ‘divine from our work’. We are, according to Halliday, ‘simplistic’ and ‘given to overstate’. We are ‘ideological’ and ‘tendentious’, our work is ‘inapposite’ and ‘misleading’. It ‘misrepresents’ and it ‘ignores’, it is ‘disputable’ and ‘contentious’, ‘historically and theoretically inaccurate’, ‘dense and meandering’, ‘spurious’ and ‘ill-intentioned’. We ‘obscure issues with polemic’, our ‘simplifications are underpinned by other simplifications’, we ‘erect on a flimsy base’. ‘More attentive reading’, Halliday feels, would ‘tell us a thing or two’. We are guilty of ‘elisions of argument’, ‘dubious imputation of motive’, and ‘foreshortening of logic’. Others have a ‘historical and theoretical erudition’ that we, Halliday feels, ‘as yet’ cannot ‘muster’. There is more: Halliday finds it necessary to make comparison of our credentials and writing with those of others whose writing he finds less difficult to follow. The credentials of some gain recognition as (somewhat obscurely) ‘second to none’, and the works of some others are judged ‘fine’, ‘able’, and ‘most competent’. He extends his approbation to yet other authors who unlike Kubálková and Cruickshank manage to talk about their subject (Marxism and International Relations) ‘appreciatively’, ‘calmly’, and ‘positively’. In an ad hominem turn Halliday expresses his misgivings as to Kubálková’s scholarship for he again feels she ‘transposes’ (‘with ease’) ‘totalitarian method’ and the ‘conformist disciplining’ of debate ‘from the eastern bloc’ on to Western academia.

There is increasing acceptance among International Relations scholars that there is a group of writers which should be recognized as constituting a distinct school of thought. More often than not this school is called, following Roy E. Jones, the ‘English school’. However, acceptance of such a school is often accompanied by disagreement and confusion as to its definitive or unifying characteristics. In the January 1988 issue of this Review, Dr Sheila Grader directly confronted this disagreement and confusion by rejecting wholesale the assertion that there is an English school. However, her own assertions and arguments fail to convince. Indeed they serve to cast the matter into deeper obfuscation.

Two points can be made at the outset. South Africa will not go away. South Africa is not about to engage in a transfer of power to its opponents. It is necessary to say this because for a decade or so (at least since the Soweto uprising of 1976) much contemporary scholarly literature and most popular journalism has concerned itself with two basic questions: when will the revolution take place and what happens after it? The assumption is that South Africa is now in the classic pre-revolutionary stage and therefore the most important field of political analysis is the economic and social character of the post-apartheid state, be it socialist, nationalist or multiracial capitalist.

These three books cover the gamut of argument about deterrence, ranging from its politics to its theoretical status and its morality. The authors, while diverse in their professional status, being government 'experts', lawyers, theologians, political scientists and philosophers, all have this in common: they seek to tell us what to do. They attempt to relate theory to practice either to justify instrumental means or goals or to prescribe them. In this sense they are all contributors to the field of strategic reasoning.