“...despite current concerns about terrorism, peace as well as liberty and prosperity should increase in the world.”

I graduated from West Point in 1968 and received my Ph.D. in political science from Stanford in 1979. My dissertation was a study of the Truman Administration’s crisis decision-making during the early Cold War. I enjoyed archival research but, like many at that time, I believed social scientific methods held great promise.

I was in the field artillery in Vietnam in 1971. I was dismayed by the waste of war and felt there had to be a better way for nations to interact, so I decided to study the causes of war, rather than how to fight them. I became convinced that a science of international politics could point the way to a more peaceful world.

I had the good fortune of meeting Bruce Russett after he and Zeev Maoz had done much to confirm the democratic peace. I believed that economic interdependence had important pacific benefits. We found that democracy and commerce are both valuable. Bruce and I also were interested in international organizations, so it seemed natural to extend the examination to the third element in Kant’s prescription for "perpetual peace." We wrote our book Triangulating Peace (Norton: 2001), which pulled all three elements together, while I was a Fulbright Scholar at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Being at the Nobel Institute and working on this project was a rare experience.

Using the epidemiological methods common to medical science, Russett and I showed that both the economic and political prescriptions of the classical liberals promote peace. Democracies are unlikely to become involved in militarized disputes with other democracies, while autocracies and democracies are prone to conflict with each other. Because democratic pairs are more peaceful than autocratic pairs, it follows that a world of democratic states would be more peaceful than a world with autocracies. Fortunately the number of democracies and the degree of globalization are increasing and apt to continue to do so. Thus, despite current concerns about terrorism, peace as well as liberty and prosperity should increase in the world. It was a wonderful feeling for me to see that the prognosis is so favorable.

Trade and foreign investment involve mutually beneficial economic relations. This creates powerful incentives not to kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs. In addition, economic interaction necessarily entails the exchange of ideas that can promote mutual regard. Eventually, international conflict may become unthinkable, as in almost all of Europe and the Americas today. Psychologists have shown that dehumanization makes it easier to harm others. The benefits of trade may include such simple consequences as the "humanization" of the people of other countries.

The big, long-term challenge is the peaceful integration of rising powers into the international system. A war between major powers inevitably affects many other, smaller states, too. The remarkably smooth integration of China into the international economy has certainly contributed to the prospects for world peace. Its involvement in international organizations has also given it a stake in stabilizing the international system.

I am currently working with Bruce Russett and Bill Nordhaus on an extension of research on the Kantian peace. We are studying the determinants of national military expenditures. I remain very confident that there will be very large "peace dividends" over the coming decades. I continue to do research on the effects of globalization on economic development.

One very inspiring aspect of working on the Kantian peace has been to see how Kant's speculations have been borne out. His treatise on Perpetual Peace was published in 1795 when there were very few democracies, trade was tightly controlled by the state and organized on mercantilistic lines to minimize interdependence with other powers, and there were no international organizations as we know them. He called his 1795 treatise a "philosophical sketch." Only after 200 years with changes in those conditions, enormous data-collection efforts, and the development of computing capacity was it possible actually to test Kant's theories. It is wonderful to have been involved in that enterprise.