Back from the USSR: Kant, Kaliningrad and World Peace [1] 
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 20(1) (2006), 27-48. [DOI: 10.1177/0047117806060926] 
Howard L. Williams, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK  
 
Abstract  
The year 2004 marked the bicentenary of Immanuel Kant?s death. This article evaluates the main 
arguments of Kant?s essay on perpetual peace in the light of developments in world politics since his 
time. How well have his ideas stood the test of time? Kant?s essay is placed in the context of his 
philosophy as a whole and through a close textual analysis the value of his propositions is assessed. 
The article looks at the Provisional and Definitive Articles in their mutual relation and places a good 
deal more emphasis than is usual upon the two supplements and appendix. Finally the article takes 
the complex circumstances of Kant?s home city, Kaliningrad, as a brief test case for his own theories.  
Keywords: Kaliningrad, Kant, perpetual peace, world federalism  
 
Introduction  
In a rare tribute to an academic philosopher, the 200th anniversary of Immanuel Kant?s death was 
marked by the visit of the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, to Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad, or 
Koenigsberg as it was formerly called, was Kant?s birthplace and home throughout his life. The city 
was in Kant?s day the principal centre of population in East Prussia and had at one time been the 
capital of Prussia itself. In the course of his brief visit Fischer officially opened the new consulate 
offices of Germany in the city and laid a wreath at Kant?s tomb alongside the cathedral. The former 
Soviet enclave is now stranded as part of the Russian Federation, with Lithuania to the east and a 
border to the west with Poland. This was a poignant occasion: not simply because it marked 200 
years since Kant?s death, but also because it took place in a city with such a complex history. The 
position of the former German city of Koenigsberg as a Russian enclave, now encircled by new 
member states of the European Union, looks precarious ? a far cry from the thriving Prussian port 
and most easterly outpost of the German-speaking world that it was in Kant?s lifetime. This complex 
and, from a German perspective, tragic history brings out the importance of world politics to the 
lives of individuals. Almost to a person the population of Kaliningrad is Russian-speaking, and there is 
hardly a trace of the rich German cultural past, with the number of German speakers in the enclave 
to be counted in their hundreds rather than thousands. If Kant has something to tell us about world 
peace then it may also have a bearing on the condition of his uniquely situated home city. Before 
1945 Koenigsberg was a major city in the German Reich. During the Cold War as Kaliningrad it was a 
major warm-water port of the Soviet Union. Now, without a direct land connection, it is the most 
westerly part of the Russian Federation.  
          Here my main focus in evaluating Kant?s theory of world politics is his remarkable Perpetual 
Peace.[2] I take each of the sections of this book and subject them in turn to scrutiny. Perpetual 
Peace begins with a short introduction and six Preliminary Articles whose observance Kant believes 
to be an essential precondition for peace. He then turns to the three Definitive Articles which we can 
here briefly denote as the republican article, the federative article and the cosmopolitan article. 
There are four more sections whose importance is often overlooked: an appendix which outlines the 
guarantee of peace; a Secret Article added to the second and French editions of the book; and two 
additions that crucially discuss the relationship between politics, morality and statesmanship. I give a 
critical overview of each of these sections, drawing out some of the lessons for us now, and then 
complete the article with some brief reflections on how Kaliningrad?s situation might be affected by 
a sensitive interpretation of Kant?s ideas. One of the concerns of the article will be to bring Kant?s 
reputation out of the shadow of the idealist/ realist divide that international relations theory has 
cast upon his writings. Kant has thoroughly systematic things to say about both the normative and 
factual sides of international politics. Indeed, he has a coherent theory of international relations that 
effectively combines the two.  
          A key conclusion of Kant?s critical philosophy is that we have to be modest about what we can 
know, but we have to be ambitious about what we ought to do. Perpetual Peace is not simply a book 
commenting from a philosophical perspective on what can be done about politics. It represents a 
point of culmination of Kant?s critical enterprise, at least in so far as its practical aspect is concerned. 
Perpetual Peace indicates how statesmen and ordinary individuals can contribute to the attainment 
of the ?politico-civil state?, which represents a crucial stage in the attainment of the ultimate goal for 
humankind of the ?highest moral good?. The concept of the highest moral good is one that Kant had 
introduced in his essay Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793) to indicate ?a duty not 
of human beings towards human beings but of the human race toward itself?.*3+ The realization of 
this duty would be ?a universal republic based on the laws of virtue?*4+ encompassing the human 
race as a whole and is distinct from a political commonwealth which requires general external 
constraint. Though distinct from it, the ideal of an ethical commonwealth can provide inspiration for 
the creation and maintenance of a political commonwealth. What would constitute the ideal goal in 
the political realm, and is a goal to which all politicians should necessarily strive, is to bring the 
human race out of its present apparently natural condition of war. The goal is not as comprehensive 
as that of ?the highest moral good? (since that concerns our inner dispositions as well), but the 
achievement of the legal relations that are the focus of the political ideal is nonetheless an 
important step along the road towards it. The highest political good consists of the ideal set of 
relations that regulate the external relations of human individuals with each other. Perpetual Peace 
is inspired by this ideal of the highest political good.[5] Thus the pursuit of perpetual peace plays a 
foundational role in Kant?s moral philosophy.  
          One of his key targets in Perpetual Peace is the traditional mind-set of the worldly-wise 
statesman. It has been suggested that Kant?s immediate inspiration in writing the essay was the 
conclusion of the Treaty of Basle between Prussia and revolutionary France on 5 April 1795 which 
arguably represented more of an armistice than a lasting peace agreement.[6] He did not think he 
should hold his silence in the face of the rapidly changing circumstances of European politics. 
Perhaps this is why he tells the tale of the pub in Holland that was named ?The Perpetual Peace? and 
on its sign was painted the picture of a graveyard.[7] Kant points out to political leaders in the 
Introduction that they cannot have it both ways. They cannot, on the one hand, regard themselves 
as people of great moment whose decisions are far removed from the abstract concerns of 
philosophers and, on the other, claim to take great offence when such an abstract theorist expresses 
a view which is contrary to their own. The ?worldly-wise statesman need not turn a hair?, he argues, 
when the philosopher fires ?off his whole broadside?.[8] These ironic comments were not intended 
to signify that he saw no role for political leaders in a programme to improve the human condition. It 
is a part of his realism that he sees them as the most significant agents in bringing about change, but 
it is a part of his idealism that they can only fulfil that role satisfactorily if they radically alter the 
theoretical basis on which they act.  
 
The Preliminary Articles  
 
Nowhere does human nature appear less admirable than in the relationships which exist 
between peoples. No state is for a moment secure from the others in its independence and 
its possessions. The will to subjugate the others or to grow at their expense is always 
present, and the production of armaments for defence, which often makes peace more 
oppressive and more destructive of internal welfare than war itself, can never be relaxed.[9]  
 
This is how international relations appeared to Kant in 1793 as he prepared to write his short book 
Perpetual Peace. He was under no illusions as to what animated the leaders of state most generally 
in their relations with one another. He was fully aware that the rulers of the world looked down with 
contempt on those who would wish to see an improvement to a better state of affairs as dreamers 
and academic scribblers. Nonetheless, Kant concluded that ?there is no possible way of 
counteracting? the woeful conditions amongst peoples except ?through a state of international right, 
based upon enforceable public laws to which each should submit?.[10] Kant thought it a helpful 
analogy to consider the present conditions of international relations as on a par with the relations 
amongst individuals in the state of nature prior to the creation of a civil society. In his view of the 
state of nature Kant agrees with Locke and Rousseau that ?it need not because it is natural, be a 
state of injustice? but he goes on to disagree with both and to concur with Hobbes that ?it is still a 
state devoid of justice, in which rights are in dispute? where there ?would be no judge competent to 
render a verdict having rightful force?. ?Since each has its own right to do what seems right and good 
and not to be dependent on another?s opinion on this?, in the state of nature ?peoples and states can 
never be secure against violence from one another?.[11] For him the undeniable equivalence 
between the two conditions brings out the current immaturity of the human race. It seems to him 
that we are insufficiently responsible to take the rational step of founding an effective legal order 
amongst states in the same way that as individuals we took the step out of the state of nature by 
founding a state. What would demonstrate our maturity at an international level would be the 
emergence of an enforceable international law.  
          So this is the goal for Kant: the creation of a worldwide civil union in the same manner as we 
have already effectively created (not everywhere, but in many parts) domestic civil unions. By a ?civil 
union? Kant means an organized society based upon the rule of law where everyone is entitled to old 
on to what is rightfully theirs. Within a civil union, in other words, we find there is distributive 
justice.[12] To be satisfied with the current condition, where a fair proportion of the world?s 
population lives within a successful domestic civil union yet nonetheless puts up with a world 
political structure that has no generally enforceable law, is unacceptable for Kant. He sees it as 
unacceptable on two grounds. First, it is morally unacceptable because we cannot deal with all 
fellow inhabitants of the planet in the way we ought, as equal individuals with rights which we have 
always to respect. Of course we should and can attempt to deal with them as though such rights 
were already universally respected, but we can always expect ? whilst not all peoples have truly civil 
governments ? to be frustrated in this aim. This is the idealist objection to the current state of 
affairs, but Kant also puts forward the realist objection that the current position offers no prospect 
of long-term stability. Kant thinks that it is, secondly, not acceptable because circumstances will 
always ensure that a world without a common legal structure is factually undermined. In other 
words, the future development of world politics, with wholly independent sovereign states 
unconstrained by effective legal ties, will, based on past experience, drive unavoidably in the 
direction of conflict. To avoid this conflict and so to sustain their own internal order successful civil 
societies will seek change. The everyday activities that occur within civil societies and the normal 
activities that civil societies will want to engage in with other peoples (such as travel, trade, 
migration and general cultural interaction) cannot occur on a stable basis in a perpetually hostile 
environment.[13] It is in the interest of the peoples of the world to step out of the international 
?state of nature? and create a lasting universal civil order.[14]  
          Thus what the worldly-wise politician might dismiss as mere abstract theorizing, which 
overlooks the actual condition of humankind, is presented by Kant as an essential ? if permanently 
open to deferral ? move for the human race. Instead of looking only to what the relations amongst 
peoples (often at their worst) are like, Kant puts his ?trust in the theory of what the relationships 
between men and states ought to be according to the principle of right?.[15] The realist outlook in 
international politics seems primarily to commend itself to its advocates because it appears to 
accord with our knowledge of the darker side of human beings and the actual course of relations 
amongst states, but it also proves attractive to political leaders because it provides a justification for 
their low ambitions in the conduct of policy. Concluding that human beings cannot reliably relate to 
each other in a rightful way in the international sphere provides encouragement and justification for 
not adhering to rightful policies. As Machiavelli puts it in his advocacy of unprincipled policies, the 
prince need not keep his word because men, ?wretched creatures? that they are, would not keep 
theirs.[16] Realist policies therefore re-enforce the current uncivil tendencies of world politics. The 
usual explanation that is provided for poor policies and undesirable outcomes is employed to justify 
low expectations and hard-nosed strategies. In this way realism as a doctrine is both explanatory and 
constitutive of the international relations we experience.  
          The first six Preliminary Articles of Perpetual Peace represent a manifesto against such realism 
in international politics and prepare the way for the positive measures that would help bring about 
peace. They deal with the ways in which unprincipled political leaders might consider themselves to 
be above the requirement to bring about peace. This is immediately evident in Preliminary Article 1 
where he forbids rulers to enter into peace negotiations with ?a secret reservation of the material for 
a future war?.[17] He suggests positive measures that will bring them all to book. Kant foresees that 
worldly-wise politicians might seek to wriggle out of the necessary commitments that would make a 
peace effective and so spells out the rules that they must adhere to. In this spirit Preliminary Articles 
2 and 5 require that leaders should give up ambitions of conquest and forcible interference with the 
constitutions and governments of other states. He also seeks to sweep away structural causes of war 
in these articles. Two such structural causes of war Kant deals with in Preliminary Articles 3 and 4. 
Kant thinks that the professionalization and instutionalization of war that can occur through the 
existence of standing armies should be weakened through the creation of citizens? armies drawn 
from the people themselves.  
          Thus, from a Kantian perspective, countries that maintain conscription (such as Germany and 
Israel today ? although both admittedly retain a professional core) are to be preferred to countries 
that maintain wholly professional armies. He also thinks that states ought not to conduct wars on 
the basis of monies raised through the expansion of national debt (Article 4). In his view this use of 
the national debt makes it too easy to wage war. Although it would be difficult for current states 
that all have sizeable national debts already to adhere precisely to this rule, there is arguably virtue 
in Kant?s recommendation that the leaders of states should restrain their pursuit of war to what can 
be financed from current income. Arguably historical circumstances have changed to such an extent 
since Kant?s day that these two articles might no longer be regarded as crucial to the success of his 
project. The raising of monies to wage a war through an expansion of the national debt was novel in 
Kant?s day, but nowadays national debt plays such a large part in funding public services in general 
that it would seem unrealistic to place limitations on its use in the pursuit of foreign policy aims. 
Similarly, it might be argued that it is well nigh impossible nowadays to organize armed forces 
effectively without some permanent commitment of staff. The technical skills required in some fields 
are so advanced (e.g. surveillance and the guidance of weapons) that only a career officer can carry 
them out. This can, indeed, be granted, but it is none the less the case that the principles advanced 
in these two articles provide some benchmarks for the politician. Politicians should at least be put in 
the position where they have to provide justifications for breaching the guidance they offer. There is 
a permanent benefit to paying attention to these two Preliminary Articles although the conditions 
under which they have to be implemented have changed considerably.  
          But the main focus of the Preliminary Articles is not so much upon concrete policy proposals as 
the maxims that political leaders adopt in pursuing policies. Kant wants to ensure that these maxims 
are not inconsistent with the emergence of lasting peace. Preliminary Article 6 represents a 
particularly striking example. Its main point is as apt as ever:   
 
no state at war with another shall permit such acts of hostility as would make mutual 
confidence impossible during a future time of peace. Such acts would include the 
appointment of assassins or poisoners, breach of agreements, the instigation of treason 
within the enemy state and so on.[18]  
 
This is a principle that seems wholly to be neglected in the present conduct of the war in the Middle 
East between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There seems to be little hope of lasting peace arising 
from a situation where no agreements are kept; where cease-fires are only temporary so that each 
may regroup their forces; where it is thought acceptable on both sides to target innocent civilians; 
and where the assassination of political opponents is a policy adopted and regularly practised by the 
leaders of a civil state.[19] From a Kantian perspective it is not surprising that there is a widespread 
revulsion at the use of such tactics in political disputes. The revulsion arises from the realization that 
underhand, disreputable and, above all, inhumane tactics are incompatible with long-term peace. 
Where despicable atrocities occur they will neither lightly be forgotten nor forgiven. They imply that 
no side desires to live with the other. They have no care how their opponents perceive them. But 
this entire disregard for one another is both a symptom and a cause of the conflict. Just as 
individuals who have ultimately to live with their fellow citizens should attempt to retain a 
perspective when they fall into dispute with one another ? and so avoid taking too drastic measures 
in the heat of their conflict ? so societies at war with one another should also have a regard for their 
long-term common occupancy of the one planet (and, in most instances, neighbouring part of the 
world) when in conflict with one another. The exercise of restraint in war is a mark of our common 
humanity, and though not itself a peaceful action, it does not bar the way towards peace in the 
future. Mutual respect and trust should not altogether be abandoned even in war.  
 
First Definitive Article  
The recommendation of republican constitutions in the First Definitive Article is perhaps the best-
known aspect of Kant?s outline for peace. This article has aroused considerable interest in the post-
Cold War era and the time leading up to it. The argument that states with democratic political 
institutions were less likely to engage in war (as Kant?s First Definitive Article implies) was advanced 
by Doyle[20] in the early 1980s and augmented and repeated by Fukuyama in the following 
decade.[21] They were two of the leading advocates of an argument that was to be described as the 
?democratic peace thesis? that was to occupy a large number of scholars for a considerable time (and 
still does so).[22] Kant stressed that he thought states with republican constitutions might be less 
likely to go to war because those who have to bear the brunt of the war, in terms of fighting and 
paying for it, would be making the decisions (through their representatives).[23] For Kant a 
republican constitution has two key features: there is a separation of powers between the 
legislature and the executive (the judiciary should also be independent of these powers); and the 
legislature is made up of the people?s representatives. In this republic the authority to go to war 
would lie with the sovereign which is the legislature. All the independent citizens, those who owed 
their existence to no one other than themselves, would elect the legislature. Kant regarded those 
who worked for others, such as wage labourers, domestic servants, minor civil servants and all 
women and children as dependent subjects of the commonwealth and therefore not entitled to 
vote. Apart from the undeniably selective element in this choice of those entitled to vote, Kant 
perhaps also underestimated how remote the people?s representatives could get from those they 
served, and also how states with republican constitutions would not take the step he recommends in 
Preliminary Article 3 that standing armies should be abolished. As yet, it is difficult to say that the 
majority of the world?s constitutionally founded states have truly republican forms of government, 
and where they do very few have citizen armies.  
          Nonetheless, it is true that empirically modern republican states are less likely to make war 
with one another, although they do frequently make war on non-liberal states.[24] In one respect 
the validity of Kant?s argument has been borne out. However the propensity of states with 
republican or near-republican states to go to war with states outside their circle must call into 
question the pacific credentials of politicians within republics. They have clearly lower thresholds for 
determining the acceptability of war in relation to states outside their ?charmed? circle than they do 
for those within it. Democratization is occurring in the post-Cold War world but it does not always 
lead to the satisfactory emergence of the two features that Kant prizes: representative legislatures 
and the separation of power between the executive and legislature. And where they are present as a 
result of the process there is a tendency on the part of political leaders to subvert their effective 
operation.   
 
Second Definitive Article  
The recommendation contained in the Second Definitive Article that ?the law of nations be based on 
a federation of free states? has arguably been less well understood. Some commentators, perhaps 
mistakenly, have connected the idea with the development of actual alliances (such as NATO) and 
organizations of states (such as the European Union or the earlier League of Nations) and argued 
that this demonstrates (or does not demonstrate) the viability of the idea.[25] Most have overlooked 
that Kant recommends the federation not simply as the day-to-day basis for regulating political 
relations amongst states, but also as a norm to be adhered to in understanding and implementing 
international law. Thus when actual federations from time to time fail this does not relieve the 
member states of the obligation to relate to each other as though they were part of a federation of 
free states. The impressive development of international law in the twentieth century, particularly in 
the period after 1989, with the strengthening and use of the International Court of Justice and the 
increasing acceptance of its jurisdiction (both within states and amongst them) testifies to the good 
sense of Kant?s argument.[26] In this period a variety of alliances, organizations and unions have vied 
for the possible role of a peaceful worldwide federation with varied success. The fact that no entirely 
satisfactory world organization has emerged that has the continuous support of all states has not 
prevented the idea of such a possible worldwide federation from influencing the legal relations 
amongst states. Antonio Cassese speaks of the ?gradual interpenetration and cross-fertilization of 
previously somewhat compartmentalized areas of international law? in the recent period that shows 
?at least at the normative level the international community is becoming more integrated?.[27]  
          The growth of international institutions such as the UN and the EU, and other regional 
institutions such as the Organization of African States and ASEAN, provides grounds for optimism not 
because they represent the literal realization of Kant?s ideal but they provide strong evidence of 
greater global integration. A key feature of Kant?s Second Definitive Article is, in my view, its lack of 
great institutional emphasis. In Perpetual Peace he neither points to any actual federation that fulfils 
his model nor does he use any direct historical analogies to illustrate his point.[28] The most he 
concretely points to is the possibility that a powerful republican state might, through the strength of 
its example, encourage the formation of a peaceful federation which would have as its aim not the 
prosecution of war but the termination of all wars. It is often thought that Kant here has in mind 
France whose new republican constitution he greatly admired. Nowadays we might regard the 
mantle as falling upon the United States since it has a constitution that arguably closely matches the 
ideal Kant outlines. The power of example (and not the example of power) is Kant?s key ingredient in 
the achievement of peace. The downplaying of formal institutional arrangements, coupled with the 
view that each state should retain its freedom within this peaceful federation does, in my view, 
provide a workable basis for extending peace globally.  
          Hidemi Suganami is correct in his intimation ?that the basic structure of Kant?s argument was 
along the lines of the domestic analogy: states must unite into an international body just as it was 
necessary for individuals to unite under separate states?.[29] On analogy with individuals who have 
joined together to establish a civil society, states that are free also have everything to gain from 
seeking to live in peace with one another. It is important this should be seen as an analogy and as 
not precisely the same process. Individuals without a state have no possibility of living justly, so 
there is a moral obligation on individuals to force others with whom they have contact into this 
condition. However, once states have been established there is at least a provisional justice at the 
domestic level so that states are neither morally required nor entitled to coerce other states into a 
federation with them. They are though morally required to grasp the inadequacy of this provisional 
justice which makes war a permanent possibility and to seek to overcome it through a continually 
enlarging peaceful federation. This peaceful federation is thus a surrogate for the state at the 
internal level. It is not the existence of international institutions such as the United Nations, the 
European Union or NATO that represents the sole issue from a Kantian perspective, but also 
whether or not there is the gradual development of a more binding international law based on the 
federative outlook of leaders of states.  
          Kant did not recommend the direct step to a world state. World unification from the top down 
could lead only to a universal despotism. Rather we should try to approximate to the ideal of one 
internal world order through a gradually expanding federation. In this one internal world order the 
borders between states would slowly begin to be seen by their citizens more like the boundaries 
between regions in the one country. Common territory would not mark the limits of their common 
concerns.[30] The fundamental political units would remain individual states, but they would relate 
to each other in a legally regulated way and their leaders would recognize their actions were under 
the jurisdiction of international law. As Suganami puts it in spelling out the implications of the 
domestic analogy: ?states would no longer exercise their legal independence selfishly, but accept it 
as their principle to act as though they were bound by a supreme legislative authority enacting laws 
for the common good of mankind?.[31] Kant seems to have envisaged this as a relationship in 
principle amongst equals, although some states inevitably would be more powerful than others. 
Kant does not want to see a federal state made up of nations (where the centre might command the 
members) but a federation of states where there would be no relationship of superior to inferior. 
Within each state there is naturally an unequal relationship between the subject and the political 
authority but in the kind of expanding federation he conceives this relationship of subordination 
amongst states would be absent.[32]  
 
Third Definitive Article  
The Third Definitive Article of Perpetual Peace outlines Kant?s principle of cosmopolitanism. From a 
moral perspective what cosmopolitanism signifies for Kant is concern for the flourishing of 
humankind as a whole and it forms an underlying theme of his critical philosophy. In the Critique of 
Pure Reason he distinguishes between the indispensable scholastic aims of philosophy that form one 
part of its key purpose and the wider cosmopolitan aims that form the other part. In Kant?s view, the 
scholasticism is demeaned if the wider cosmopolitan aim of the ?destiny? of the human species is lost 
sight of.[33] The destiny of the human species is that we should form a dominion of ends ?where 
each of them is to treat himself and all others never merely as means but always at the same time as 
ends in themselves?.[34] This is the ultimate goal that underlies all virtuous human activity. In the 
Third Definitive Article Kant attempts to spell out the political implications of this precept. This is 
that ?cosmopolitan right shall be limited to the condition of universal hospitality?. Another way of 
putting this is: ?the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostility when he arrives on someone 
else?s territory?.[35] This means that we are not to deal in a hostile or antagonistic way with visitors 
to our country. We are to conceive ourselves as forming with them, as rational beings and fellow 
inhabitants of the same planet, a dominion of ends. This does not imply that Kant is advocating an 
open house. We are entitled to return such visitors to their point of entry as long as their freedom 
and dignity are not harmed. A positive welcome for such visitors is of course better, but this cannot 
be seen as a duty of right (or law). What right requires is that we should not regard visitors from 
territories other than our own as enemies.  
          However, Kant?s principle of cosmopolitanism should also be seen in relation to our visits to 
countries outside our own. There are important implications here that Kant does not overly stress 
but were nonetheless vital to him. In visiting other countries we should see ourselves as guests. This 
means we should not help ourselves to the possessions of others and their territory. We can only 
rightly acquire those things through the cooperation and agreement of the resident population. In 
this respect the requirements of Kant?s principle of cosmopolitanism contrast markedly with the 
record of European expansion in the modern period. All European colonialism and imperialism of the 
modern period ran entirely counter to this principle.  
          Of course, this principle of cosmopolitanism has implications for political and military 
intervention now. Preliminary Articles 2 and 5 of Perpetual Peace rule out direct intervention as an 
acceptable policy. The second does in the largest sense in that it forbids states from acquiring other 
states ?by inheritance, exchange, purchase or gift?.[36] This article represents a considerable 
understatement by Kant, since in rejecting the modes of acquisition he lists he clearly implies that 
the acquisition of another state by the use of force is wholly ruled out. The fifth article rules out 
intervention in the more specific sense, which re-enforces this view that ?no state shall forcibly 
interfere in the constitution and government of another state?.[37] Kant sees the independence of a 
state as analogous to the freedom of an adult individual in a settled modern society. Within such a 
civil society we allow others to follow their own course so long as they do not interfere with the 
freedom of their fellow citizens. We cannot prevent our fellow citizens from following through their 
lawfully permitted choices, even if we form the opinion that they might be bad for them or for 
ourselves. Independent states like free individuals are entitled to make their own mistakes. If a state 
sets a bad example for others and endures miseries as a result of its own foolhardiness this, just as 
with the individual, is a price we have to pay for our own independence. For Kant the possible right 
of interference may arise if we are a neighbouring state whose own sovereignty and security is 
risked by disturbances. Where a nearby people refuses to enter the civil condition and to recognize 
and respect our own then it may legitimately be forced to conform:  
 
It is usually assumed that one cannot take hostile action against anyone unless one has 
already been actively injured by them. This is perfectly correct if both parties are living in a 
legal civil state. For the fact that the one has entered such a state gives the required 
guarantee to the other, since both are subject to the same authority. But a human being (or 
an individual people) in a mere state of nature robs me of any such security and already 
wrongs me just by being near me in this condition . . . and I can coerce him either to enter 
into a condition of being under civil law or to leave my neighbourhood.[38]  
 
Thus peoples who do not properly establish a civil union or have lapsed from that condition cannot 
complain when they have order imposed upon them from outside. A nation that does not respect 
and implement the rule of law does not qualify as an independent state.  
          Kant therefore sets a very high threshold for the permissibility of intervention within the 
boundaries of other states. In international politics no leaders should see fit to set themselves up as 
the final judge of the quality of political life in other states. As with the individual in civil society, we 
should all practise tolerance in judging the actions of others, even where we are convinced they 
might be harming themselves in what they do.[39] But Kant is aware of the knock-on effects of 
conflict within states upon other states. Internal conflicts that spill over and lead to illegal 
interference with the rights of other states and their subjects can legitimately lead to intervention. 
Where a state is failing and other neighbouring countries have to bear the consequences, then it 
may be right for them and their allies to act. Kant though greatly prizes the autonomy of states and 
such intervention should always be resorted to only when it is evident that a people no longer have 
a functioning constitution and sovereign. Preliminary Article 5 might appear to make contemporary 
attempts at humanitarian intervention beyond the scope of Kant?s project for perpetual peace. 
However, Kant notes in the comments to the same article that the condition of states subject to 
internal turmoil might make the prohibition on external interference temporarily invalid. Thus where 
there is a clear breakdown in internal order and a society is divided into two or more camps each 
claiming sovereign authority (and so as a consequence there being none), outside support to bring 
the anarchy to an end is defensible. The key point in assessing the defensibility of the intervention 
has to be the extent to which the state has ceased to exist in its previous sovereign form.  
          Thus, today?s humanitarian intervention might be acceptable from Kant?s perspective where it 
takes place in a society without effective law and where there is at least one warring party that 
might potentially form a successful new sovereign body.[40] Such examples are wholly consistent 
with Kant?s ban on forcible intervention in the constitutional affairs of other states, since countries 
that are torn with civil war no longer have effective constitutions.[41] Kant deplored revolutionary 
politics and thought that political improvement should always be sought by peaceful means from 
above. However, Kant does acknowledge that where sovereign power is no longer effective then I 
can join with others forcibly to institute a new sovereign power. To determine whether or not this is 
the case is a matter of sound political judgment that should be informed by the most rigorous 
political theory and the most precise knowledge of the facts. In this assessment the principles of 
right should be the touchstone to which political expediency should always be subordinate.  
 
The guarantee of perpetual peace  
The surprising thing about this first addendum to Perpetual Peace is that it does not provide us with 
an absolute guarantee of progress to world peace at all. In this respect Kant?s argument differs from 
the interpretation that has been given to his work by contemporary commentators such as Doyle 
and Fukuyama. In this addendum Kant reminds us how human history might be interpreted 
teleologically [42] as leading necessarily to the improvement of the species, but warns us that we 
cannot empirically take this to be the case. That human individuals have been scattered to all 
corners of the earth by their own competitiveness and acquisitiveness; that this process of dispersal 
cannot be endless ? at some point we have to turn back in on ourselves and live with others; that 
language and religion divide people and peoples and make them always attempt to better 
themselves; in short that our irascibility leads us contrary to our tendency towards laziness and idle 
contentment to become ever more cultured and skilful. This indeed provides material for a 
teleological account but does not constitute cast-iron proof of progress.  
          Kant uses the term ?asociable sociability? to describe the irascible tendency in human beings 
that spurs them on to develop themselves more fully. Human beings have a propensity both to seek 
to acquire the recognition of others and at the same time to avoid too much contact with them. We 
need others even though they quite often irritate us. The term is deployed in the essay ?Idea for a 
Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose?, where Kant claims that the human being ?expects 
resistance all round, just as he knows of himself that he is in turn inclined to offer resistance to 
others?.[43] This asociable sociability has to be properly harnessed if human beings are going to live 
in peace with one another. Kant?s stress on it brings out the realism of his approach. 
          Even war itself can be seen as having progressive implications. Although war amongst 
sovereign states is for Kant the worst of all evils, by engaging all the powers of those people involved 
in them it forces them against their inclinations to become more competent, effective and efficient. 
Human skills are increased enormously under the pressure of our own possible extinction. War, 
moreover, teaches us of its own dangers. Peoples exhausted after long and destructive wars are 
brought to realize that they must seek better ways of regulating their relations with one another. 
Thus even without the intervention of moral leaders and peoples we can interpret the haphazard 
development of human history as tending towards betterment. But this guarantee of progress exists 
not as a factual one (we cannot just sit back and expect the world to improve) but as a guide for 
practical reason. By practical reason Kant means here our own inner moral deliberations, something 
we might normally designate as the use of our conscience. The ?guarantee of perpetual peace? is a 
confirmation that the moral efforts of the good state?s leader and virtuous subjects are not to be 
seen as without worth. This represents the idealism of his approach. We are not to accept the 
Machiavellian view of the role of political leaders, and so to bolster the efforts of rulers to act in a 
peace-like way we are legitimately entitled to regard circumstances as not standing in the way of 
improvement.  
          Thus Kant?s guarantee of perpetual peace is not an attempt to demonstrate that world peace is 
inevitable and so to hasten to bring it about. Rather he is arguing for the more open-ended view that 
if we look at the record so far no one can say with certainty that improvement has not occurred and 
is not occurring. There is no irrefutable empirical case for pessimism that should stand in the way of 
a state?s leader seeking to change things for the better. Realism is accorded its due but it is not 
allowed to extinguish the idealist thread in Kant?s thinking. For it is only from the normative 
perspective that Kant believes that there is an unanswerable case for highlighting and taking 
advantage of those respects in which the human race is improving. Thus even if world history is 
regarded as having taken a turn for the worse (as it did with the war against revolutionary France), 
and the evidence for progress is apparently very slight, there is no overwhelming case for Kant to 
give up his project.  
 
 
The normative dimension and the role of the philosopher  
That everything does depend on moral politicians ? or human intervention ? can be seen from the 
final two supplements to Perpetual Peace. In the first, concerning the apparent failure of morality 
and politics to coincide in their bearing on perpetual peace, Kant seeks to remove the objections to a 
political leader abiding by moral principles by showing how amoral strategies undermine 
themselves. (For example, the Machiavellian leader who consistently fails to keep their word will 
find fairly swiftly that no one will take their word). The comparative length of this supplement, ?On 
the disagreement between morals and politics in relation to perpetual peace?, taken together with 
the space devoted to its partner, the second supplement demonstrates where Kant?s main concerns 
lie with the acceptability of his argument. The two supplements occupy almost the same space in 
the essay as Kant?s concrete proposals in the Preliminary and Definitive Articles, illustrating his worry 
that the ordinary person and the political leader would not so much dismiss specific policy 
recommendations, as the whole idea that principles should play an important part in determining 
political decisions and foreign policy in particular. In Perpetual Peace Kant is tackling (almost 
primarily) the common prejudice that politics is a devious, immoral art. This is not merely a 
preoccupation of Kant in his peace essay; it also surfaces in an earlier essay, ?On the Common Saying: 
This May be True in Theory, but it Does Not Apply in Practice? (1793). He objects very strongly to the 
common presumption that political leaders have to be worldly-wise and not pay heed to moral 
considerations (unless they are to their advantage). The Machiavellian believes that in a world of 
beasts the political leader must be prepared to act like a beast (combining the cunning of the fox 
with the strength and daring of the lion) or else he will be devoured.44 The advocates of power 
politics were very much in evidence in Kant?s times; he draws attention to one such writing, On 
Combining Morality with Politics, by the Silesian popular philosopher Christian Garve in the final 
pages of Perpetual Peace.[45]  
          In responding to Garve, Kant wants to tackle the view that moral principles are merely a side 
issue ? and that prudence should come before justice ? when it comes to determining the policies of 
state. This to him is one of the biggest obstacles to the improvement of political life and relations 
amongst states. To understand the argument Kant wants to put we nave not to take this to mean 
that the political leader should neglect astuteness and care in determining choices. What people fail 
to see (or deliberately overlook) is that it is possible to combine care, prudence and astuteness with 
moral principles. Kant can perfectly understand that it is sound advice for a politician to seek to be as 
wise as a ?serpent?; however, the advice of the philosopher that the politician should also seek to be 
as ?harmless as a dove? should also be heeded.[46] Kant above all gives this advice because he thinks 
that to act without regard to morality is always wrong. As the sole representatives of rational nature 
upon the planet we owe it to ourselves to act according to principle. We demean our status as 
rational beings when we overlook what principle requires. We ought not to, and in so far as we are 
thinking beings we cannot, escape morality.  
          But for those who are not swayed by such ethical arguments (and they demonstrate their 
inhumanity and insensitivity in not being moved by them) Kant is also prepared to advance 
supplementary and powerful arguments that draw upon the worldly-wise person?s measures of 
correctness ? prudence and the likelihood of success. Kant believes that politicians that act without 
regard for morality will ultimately undermine themselves. Worldly-wise politicians attempt to base 
their strategies on what best yields success in the world. Their measure of the quality of a policy is its 
outcome. If the outcome is good the policy also is deemed good. But to achieve policies that bring 
success of this kind, knowledge of the world is required. We have to draw on experience to decide 
which policies suit us best. However, it is in the nature of experience, which conveys to us 
knowledge of the empirical world, that it can never be complete. New circumstances and instances 
can always occur that may upset the ideas that we have previously held. To make policies based on 
expediency alone always a success would require infinite knowledge: the knowledge that we as 
humans are denied.  
          Those who stand most in the way of lasting peace are for Kant the ?moralizing politicians? who 
take morality seriously only as a means of deceiving and manipulating people.  
 
By glossing over political principles contrary to right on the pretext that human nature is not 
capable of what is good in accord with that idea, as reason prescribes it, [they] make 
improvement impossible and perpetuate, as far as they can, violations of right.[47]  
 
Political leadership is indeed a skill which requires prudence and knowledge of the world, but it has 
to be a skill that is exercised in tandem with morality, otherwise the skill will come to nothing. 
Unprincipled, artful politicians ultimately undermine themselves and their societies.  
          From the statesman?s point of view there are two key aspects to successful political rule: the 
first involves the exercise of coercive power to implement policy and the second involves the 
consent of free subjects that can only be derived from moral persuasion. A ruler can of course rely 
on the mechanisms of nature (e.g. fear, desire for advantage and competition) to gain obedience in 
the last analysis. But this kind of compliance requires great material resources. The kind of 
compliance that corresponds with our nature as free beings is one that accords with reason. The 
most important ingredient in the success of a policy is the respect of the subjects that have 
acquiesced in it and carry it out. In Kant?s terms, policy based on expediency or utilitarian calculation 
depends excessively on the coercive mechanisms of the state. Politicians who follow this line are 
engaged in a continuous gamble as to whether or not their policies work out. In failing to please 
their subjects they will lose their respect and ultimately their support. Contrariwise, politicians who 
place due emphasis on doing the right thing, and so gaining the consent of their subjects, will not 
lose their respect, even if the outcomes are not entirely what is anticipated. Seen from a Kantian 
perspective the more a people are convinced of the morality of a policy the less a ruler has to 
depend on natural mechanisms to gain compliance. No doubt rulers can always get by on force for 
some of the time, but if this becomes a norm the more precarious will become their rule. So the 
uncertainty of an immoral politics may of itself drive the leader who gives priority to strategic 
considerations to a moral policy.  
          Lasting success will come only to the political leaders who take theory seriously. Their policies 
have to be framed in a consistent framework that only theory can provide. And it is this framework 
that Kant seeks to provide in his political philosophy and Perpetual Peace.  
          In the second supplement, concerning the coincidence between morality and politics according 
to the transcendental concept of public right, Kant shows how moral principles should properly be 
pursued in politics through leaders conforming to the idea of publicity. What the idea of publicity 
requires is that in order for a policy to succeed the maxims underlying it have to be made public. 
Political leaders should be able to express openly the overall strategy that lies behind any particular 
measure or action. When they do properly inform the public of their guiding aims, both their own 
subjects and the world at large, there is no reason to believe that politics and morality can come into 
conflict with one another.  
          It is interesting to observe that debates about the rightness of the war against Iraq in 2003/4 
have focused very heavily (this is certainly the case for Britain) on the question of publicity. The 
question of whether or not the public was properly informed by the government of its underlying 
strategy and the information on which it was based has been at the heart of recent controversy 
about the legality and prudence of the war. There is a sense expressed by some commentators that 
the true motives for the war have never been established and that the government may be 
justifiably open to criticism to the extent that it may appear to have something to hide.48 In the 
absence of information and a persuasive explanation of the action, speculation has arisen that the 
ultimate grounds for the war may lie in a desire to sustain and spread western influence and power 
in a highly important strategic and economic region. More imaginative explanations have also been 
offered, some relating to a personal motivation that George W. Bush might have to take revenge for 
the seeming humiliation of his father, George Bush, by the Iraqi regime in the earlier war, and a later 
alleged attempt to assassinate the former President and close family in Kuwait.49 In the nature of 
things there is little that can be done to disprove or prove these accounts, but Kant?s 
recommendations about publicity might, had they been followed, have led the parties concerned at 
least to reflect more fully on their underlying rationale for conducting the war. It is true that no one 
can know with absolute certainty what their underlying motives in acting are, but without an 
attempt to formulate them and make them clear we cannot even approximate to that goal.  
          Kant argues that political leaders should always put their policies to the test against the 
principle of publicity. A political leader should never entertain a measure that is contrary to right or 
justice. The role of political leaders is to enforce law and so to encourage the public at large to abide 
by it. They should know the laws of their country and those of international justice and not act 
contrary to them. And if they require to test whether or not a measure is acceptable, since not all 
measures can be covered by existing law, then Kant has this formula for them: ?All actions relating to 
the rights of others are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity.?[50] If the political leader 
is aware that for a policy to succeed its underlying motive has to be kept quiet then this is sure 
enough proof that the policy is wrong.  
 
For a maxim that I cannot divulge without thereby defeating my own purpose, one that 
absolutely must be kept secret if it is to succeed and that I cannot publicly acknowledge 
without unavoidably arousing everyone?s opposition to my project, can have stirred up this 
necessary and general (hence a priori foreseeable) opposition against me because it is itself 
unjust and constitutes a threat to everyone.[51]  
 
To be properly at ease with their own decisions political leaders have to ask themselves whether or 
not they can be open about their rules of conduct in acting.  
          Kant added a second, secret, addendum to the second edition of Perpetual Peace (1796) that 
further strengthens the idea of publicity and highlights the contribution that he himself might make 
to world peace. The secret addendum stipulates the prominent role that philosophers should play in 
politics: ?the maxims of the philosophers on the conditions under which public peace is possible shall 
be consulted by states which are armed for war?.[52] It is perhaps odd that Kant should refer to this 
as a secret addendum, after apparently condemning political leaders for not revealing their maxims 
in carrying out policies. But his purpose is both diplomatic and rhetorical. He wants politicians to feel 
free to follow the advice of philosophers without losing face with their subjects by appearing 
subordinate to others in their society.[53] Unlike Marx, who famously argued ?that the philosophers 
have only variously interpreted the world, the point is to change it?,[54] and so inadvertently implied 
that politics had no need for armchair theorizing, Kant defends with vigour the position of the 
academic. The academic should be allowed to speak openly without fear and be entitled to criticize 
the policies of leaders. Indeed, Kant stresses that political and legal arrangements should be such 
that the intellectual and moral independence of academics in the public expression of their ideas 
should be absolute. How can we know if we are doing the right thing if there is no scope to develop 
an independent measure of truth and justice? How can political leaders know if they are doing well 
or badly unless someone is by the nature of their profession free to evaluate their actions? Free 
enquiry is the especial responsibility of philosophers. Philosophers should not rule, but their voices 
should be heard and be fully taken into account in deliberating policy.[55] Kant?s greatest potential 
contribution to world peace is arguably the example of free academic enquiry (over the whole range 
of human knowledge and practice) that he showed.  
 
Conclusion  
Reflecting once again on the occasion that gave rise to this article ? the bicentenary of Kant?s death 
in Kaliningrad ? it is apparent that the city?s history itself is both a lesson about the consequences of 
the unplanned development of world politics, moved by wars and ideological and political strife, and 
a lesson as to what might have been gained if Kant?s words had been more closely heeded by the 
world?s leaders. The situation of Kaliningrad is salutary because whatever perspective one adopts 
none of the present parties involved can be wholly satisfied with the territory?s position and 
condition. Kaliningrad stands isolated on the coast of the Baltic Sea, itself a casualty of war. From the 
perspective of many German people, for whom it was once part of their homeland, the present 
circumstances may seem deeply disappointing. The city that was a proud part of their heritage no 
longer exists. From a Russian perspective things are just as unsatisfactory. Kaliningrad is cut off from 
the Russian Federation land mass by the Baltic states and Belarus. By far the simplest way for a 
Russian to travel to Poland is now by air. The enclave is going to be difficult to sustain, and possibly 
even more so now that Poland and the Baltic states are members of the European Union and so 
more open to western influence, trade and investment. The economic and social advantages of this 
western connection will become more apparent by the day.  
          Thus Kaliningrad?s situation is sadly complicated, evidence of the catastrophes that can be 
caused by war and evidence also of the dialectical way in which history works to remind the human 
species of its weaknesses and its obligations. From Kant?s perspective it brings home what the 
consequences of the absence of moral theory in the politics of nations can be. German foreign policy 
in the twentieth century followed a course that was diametrically opposed to the one that is 
outlined by Kant in his political writings. German leaders acted contrary to Preliminary Article 1 in 
not entering into the accord ending the First World War in the proper spirit.56 No doubt this was 
made difficult for them by the punitive policies of the Allies, but dishonesty about re-armament and 
the preparation for future wars was not the right way to counter it.[57] Hitler broke Articles 2 and 5 
in seeking to acquire and hold new territories. He professionalized and idolized the armed forces in 
contravention to Preliminary Article 3 and built up its strength through an expanded national debt 
contrary to Article 4. He interfered in an unprincipled way with the constitutions of neighbouring 
states (5) and in war he acted in a bestial and savage way towards enemy states. German politics 
reflected an un-Kantian spirit in the first half of the century by rejecting republicanism. Only with 
West Germany?s advent in the late 1940s did the nation embrace the second of the Definitive 
Articles in seeking to create and maintain a peaceful federation of states. Quite clearly also until 
1945 the Nazi state showed hostility towards the nationals of many other states (and particularly 
those of a different racial descent).  
          Of course the Soviet regime cannot be seen as entirely above blame for its politics and foreign 
policy in the same period. Responding in kind to the imperialist politics of the time they acquired 
territories not their own (in Poland and Finland for example); interfered grossly with the 
constitutions of other states (Preliminary Article 5); and used despicable tactics in war (the use of 
spies; encouraging atrocities). Unlike Germany it might also still be criticized now for only half-
heartedly embracing a republican constitution, and for failing to pay proper attention to the 
possibility of forming a peaceful federation opposed to war with other like-minded states. For three 
decades or more both Germany and Russia experienced totalitarian regimes that would not allow 
the free public discussion of political and social issues. The dictatorial leaders of these regimes felt 
under no obligation to heed the Secret Article that Kant added to the second edition of Perpetual 
Peace calling for state leaders actively to seek the advice of philosophers by encouraging the widest 
possible public discussion. Even though each of these regimes had their own class of philosophers 
they were bound to a rigid state orthodoxy that prevented them from giving any genuinely 
independent advice.[58]  
          A different and better future for Kaliningrad will involve making good these mistakes and 
reversing the trends of the last century. Given Kant?s perspective there are two ways in which this 
improvement can be brought about. Political leaders can do it consciously by adopting the 
framework he recommends and connecting it to developing circumstances, or it can come about by 
default through the pressure of events (the kind of reasoning he deploys in outlining the guarantee 
of perpetual peace). If progress can be said to have occurred up to now, arguably it can be said to 
have occurred more inadvertently through the second of these processes. Some improvement has 
been forced upon Kaliningrad against the wills of its past and present rulers ? as for instance with its 
present advance from totalitarian rule. Given its experience over the last century few can seriously 
believe that the way forward for Kaliningrad and its people lies through the use of military force. The 
way forward now lies through cooperation and consciously abiding by the rules outlined in Perpetual 
Peace. Although events up until now may have dealt Kaliningrad a bad hand, following Kant?s view of 
history, the approach of its citizens and others concerned about its future should not be fatalistic. 
Just as the disappointment of Germans at seeing the disappearance of part of their national heritage 
can be turned to advantage to encourage German interest and investment in the enclave, so the 
deep desire of Russians to come forward economically can lead to a greater interest in the trading 
and commercial potential of Kaliningrad [59] ? now effectively landlocked in the European Union. 
The Russian leaders can see they can only flourish in Kaliningrad if they nurture and stabilize their 
relations with the European Union. Both German and Russian leaders are acutely conscious of their 
need to cooperate with each other in the region. The two former enemies see that the can only 
overcome the tragic past jointly.[60] Both morality and expediency point to a republican, federative 
and cosmopolitan solution to the problems of Kaliningrad.  
          These three dimensions: the republican, federative and cosmopolitan correspond to the three 
definitive articles of Kant?s Perpetual Peace. The opportunity for republicanism is provided by the 
demise of the totalitarian Soviet state. The people of Kaliningrad should take advantage of their 
position as the most westerly of the Russian cities to institute a truly representative democratic form 
of government. The opportunity for federalism is provided by Kaliningrad?s position both within the 
Russian Federation and on the borders of the European Union. Only through the recognition of legal 
means as the proper manner for conducting relations with other Russian republics and with 
surrounding states can Kaliningrad thrive. Finally, the opportunity for cosmopolitanism is provided 
by the need for the people of Kaliningrad to be treated with hospitality by their neighbours (to be 
given proper access for travel and trade) newly admitted to the European Union and for them to 
offer hospitality to visitors from the West to open their economy. The success of Kaliningrad might 
then become an emblem for the good sense of Kant?s political and international theory.  
 
Notes  
[1]  This is a revised version of a paper given at a conference held in Kaliningrad State University on 
12?13 February 2004 marking the bicentenary of Kant?s death on 12 February 1804.  
[2]  The book was first published in 1795 (Koenigsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius) with an enlarged second 
edition appearing in 1796. In the same year Kant brought out a French translation with the same 
publisher (two unauthorized translations had already appeared). References made here are to the 
standard German edition in Kants Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 8 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1898?) and 
the English translation by H. B. Nisbet in Kant?s Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 1991).  
[3 ] Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) p. 
108; 6, 97.  
[4] Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, p. 109; 6, 98.  
[5] Cf. Y. Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 
187?9.  
[6] Arsenij Gulyga, Immanuel Kant (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), pp. 275?6.  
[7] Perpetual Peace, in Kant?s Political Writings, p. 93; 8, 343.  
[8] Perpetual Peace, p. 93; 8, 343.  
[9] Perpetual Peace, p. 92; 8, 312.  
[10] Perpetual Peace, p. 93; 8, 312.  
[11] Metaphysics of Morals, in Kant?s Practical Philosophy ed. and trans. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 456; 6, 312.  
[12] Metaphysics of Morals, p. 451; 6, 307: ?Einer unter distributiven Gerechtigkeit stehenden 
Gesellschaft?.  
[13] The concern that has been shown about the ?blowback? effect of the United States? military and 
intelligence activities must surely partly arise from the impact the disruption is having on essential 
day-to-day activities such as travel and trade. ?The term ?blowback,? which officials of the Central 
Intelligence Agency first invented for their own internal use, is starting to circulate among students 
of international relations. It refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret 
from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of ?terrorists? or ?drug 
lords? or ?rogue states? or ?illegal arms merchants? often turn out to be blowback from earlier 
American operations.? Chalmers Johnstone, Blowback (London: Little, Brown, 2000), p. 8.  
[14] ?Peoples who have grouped themselves into nation states may be judged in the same way as 
individual men living in a state of nature, independent of external laws; for they are standing offence 
to one another by the very fact they are neighbours. Each nation, for the sake of its own security, 
can and ought to demand of the others that they should enter along with it into a constitution, 
similar to the civil one, where the rights of each could be secured.? Perpetual Peace, p. 102; 8, 354.  
[15] Perpetual Peace, p. 92; 8, 313.  
[16] N. Machiavelli, The Prince (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 100.  
[17] Perpetual Peace, p. 93; 8, 344.  
[18] Perpetual Peace, p. 96; 8, 343.  
[19] See Amnesty International, 4 July 2003 (AI Index: MDE 15/056/2003) ?Israel and the Occupied 
Territories: Israel Must End its Policy of Assassinations?, and also ?State Assassinations and Other 
Unlawful Killings?, 21 February 2001 (AI Index: MDE 15/005/2001).  
[20] Michael Doyle, ?Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs?, I and 2, Philosophy and Public 
Affairs, 12(3), 1983, pp. 205?35 and 12(4), 1983, pp. 324?53.   
[21] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin, 1992).  
[22] Cf. Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynne-Jones and Steven Miller, Debating the Democratic Peace 
(Boston: MIT Press, 1996); Steve Chan, ?In Search of Democratic Peace: Problems and Promise?, 
Mershon International Studies Review, 41, 1997, pp. 59?91  
[23] Perpetual Peace, p. 100; 8, 350?1: ?If, as is inevitably the case under this constitution, the 
consent of the citizen is required to decide whether or not war is to be declared, it is very natural 
that they will have greater hesitation in embarking on so dangerous an enterprise. For this would 
mean calling down on themselves all the miseries of war.?  
[24] Doyle puts this more strongly, saying ?even though liberal states have become involved in 
numerous wars with nonliberal states, constitutionally secure liberal states have yet to engage in 
war with one another?. ?Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs?, I, p. 213.  
[25] Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, pp. 282?3.  
[26] Cf. Sharon Anderson-Gold, Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights (Cardiff: University of Wales 
Press, 2001), pp. 59, 61 and 63?74. The weaknesses and strengths of this position have been 
discussed by Juergen Habermas in ?Hat die Konstitutionalisierung des Voelkerrechts noch eine 
Chance??, in Der Gespalten Westen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), pp. 113?93.  
[27] A. Cassese, International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 45.  
[28] In the Doctrine of Right, in contrast, Kant refers to the ideal of a ?permanent congress of states? 
and suggests that ?something of the kind took place? in the first half of the eighteenth century in the 
?assembly of the States General at The Hague?. Here the ?ministers of most of the courts of Europe 
and even of the smallest republics lodged with it their complaints about attacks being made on one 
of them by another?. Metaphysics of Morals, p. 488; 6, 350. See also the comments Kant makes in 
the same text on the Amphictyonic League: p. 483; 6, 344.  
[29] Hidemi Suganami, The Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 1989), p. 21.  
[30] Cf. Suganami: ?the community of mankind, in which universalism prevails over national 
parochialism, is therefore one where the area in which the citizens of another state are treated in 
the same way as those of one?s own state has expanded to the full. The last phrase, ?to the full?, 
taken literally, suggests that in the ultimate world community the citizens of separate states should 
be treated totally without prejudice to their nationality.? The Domestic Analogy and World Order 
Proposals, p. 207.  
[31] Sugamami, The Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals, p. 207.  
[32] Perpetual Peace, p. 102; 8, 354.  
[33] A868; 3, 543.  
[34] Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals in Practical Philosophy, p. 83; 4, 433.  
[35] Perpetual Peace, p. 105; 8, 357.  
[36] Perpetual Peace, p. 94; 8, 345.  
[37] Perpetual Peace, p. 96; 8, 346.  
[38] Perpetual Peace, p. 98n; 8, 349 (translation modified).  
[39] For a useful outline and an interesting critique of Kant?s position on intervention, see Frederick 
Teson, A Philosophy of International Law (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 19?21.  
[40] The Responsibility to Protect, the report of the International Commission on Intervention and 
State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Research Centre, 2001), p. 11, would seem to imply that 
the issue of humanitarian intervention often arises in such a context. ?Millions of human beings 
remain at the mercy of civil wars, insurgencies, state repression and state collapse. This is a stark and 
undeniable reality, and is at the heart of all the issues with which the Commission has been 
wrestling. What is at stake here is not making the world safe for big powers, or trampling over the 
sovereign rights of small ones, but delivering practical protection for ordinary people, at risk of their 
lives, because their states are unwilling or unable to protect them.?  
[41] I am grateful to one of the article?s anonymous referees for pointing this out to me.  
[42] Kant presents such a picture of history as working towards a definite goal in his earlier essay, 
?Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose? (1784), in Kant?s Political Writings, pp. 
41?53.  
[43] ?Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose?, p. 44; 8, 121 (translation modified).  
[44] ?Therefore one must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves.? 
Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 99.  
[45] Perpetual Peace, p. 129; 8, 385.  
[46] Perpetual Peace, p. 117; 8, 370.  
[47] Perpetual Peace, p. 119; 8, 373.  
[48] See John Kampfner, Blair?s Wars (London: Free Press, 2004), pp. 162?4, 168?9.  
[49] On the reported assassination attempt, see James Bamford, A Pretext for War (New York: 
Doubleday, 2004), pp. 255?9.  
[50] Perpetual Peace, p. 126; 8, 381 (translation amended).  
[51] Perpetual Peace, p. 126; 8, 381 (translation amended).  
[52] Perpetual Peace, p.115; 8, 368.  
[53] ?In transactions involving public right, a secret article (regarded objectively or in terms of its 
content) is a contradiction. But in subjective terms, i.e. in relation to the sort of person who dictates 
it, an article may well contain a secret element, for the person concerned may consider it prejudicial 
to his own dignity to name himself publicly as its originator?. Perpetual Peace, p. 115; 8, 368.  
[54] ?Theses on Feuerbach?, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works in One Volume 
(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1968), p. 30.  
[55] Frederick Rauscher, ?The Institutionalization of Reason?, Kantian Review, 9, 2005, pp. 95?104.  
[56] Norman Davies, Europe: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 942. See also 
Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic (Unwin Hyman: London, 1988), pp. 32?3, for an assessment of 
the German leaders? approach to the Versailles Treaty.  
[57] Cf. Kolb, The Weimar Republic, pp. 175?8. On Nazi rearmament policy, see R. J. Overy, The 
Origins of the Second World War, second edn (London: Longman, 1998), pp. 49?50, and Ian Kershaw, 
?Nazi Foreign Policy: Hitler?s Programme or Expansion without Object??, in Patrick Finney (ed.), The 
Origins of the Second World War (London: Arnold, 1997), pp. 130?2.  
[58] For the East German experience, see Norbert Kapferer, Das Feindbild der marxistisch-eninistisch 
Philosophie in der DDR (Darmstadt: Wissenschafliche Buchhandlung, 1990), pp. 324?5, who makes 
clear that East German philosophers were not entitled even to subject Marxism-Leninism to critical 
scrutiny.  
[59] The ?official thinking? is ?that Kaliningrad region could become a key player in developing 
Russia?s future relationship with Europe?, ?a pilot region for mutually advantageous cooperation 
between Russia and the EU in the 21st Century?. ?The circumstances in which it acquired the territory 
now known as Kaliningrad may not have been ideal, but it is populated overwhelmingly by Russians 
and is very much seen in Moscow as a sovereign part of the Russian Federation. The territory may 
not rate much in terms of economic wealth, but its main asset is in its geographical position: with 
the correct level of investment, it could be developed into a transport-freight conduit between 
Eastern and Western Europe.? ?Kaliningrad should not be left to become a besieged fortress but 
developed to become a natural part of the European space with free movement of peoples, goods 
and services.? Steven Main, Kaliningrad (Camberley: Conflict Studies Research Centre, 2001), p. 44. 
See also Richard Krickus, The Kaliningrad Question (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 
129, 138.  
[60] For a further insight into the historical complexities of the region, see W. Boehm and A. Graw, 
Koenigsberg morgen ? Luxemburg an der Ostsee (Asendorf: MUT Verlag, 1993), and L. Klatsch, 
Koenigsberg in Preussen seit Peter den Grossen (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2001), ?Kaliningrad als Exklave?, 
p. 91.