Each state pursues its own ...

Each state pursues its own interest's, however defined, in ways it judges best. Force is a means of achieving the external ends of states because there exists no consistent, reliable process of reconciling the conflicts of interest that inevitably arise among similar units in a condition of anarchy.
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 Kenneth Waltz

Quotes from the same author

Asking who won a given war, someone has said, is like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake. That in war there is no victory but only varying degrees of defeat is a proposition that has gained increasing acceptance in the twentieth century.
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 Kenneth Waltz
To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous.
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 Kenneth Waltz
War may achieve a redistribution of resources, but labor, not war, creates wealth.
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 Kenneth Waltz
The implication of game theory, which is also the implication of the third image, is, however, that the freedom of choice of any one state is limited by the actions of the others.
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 Kenneth Waltz