Sovereignty has become controversial. The idea and practice of sovereignty are said to be increasingly undermined by the simultaneous transnationalization and localization of political, economic, and cultural space. Not only is the ability of states to control their boundaries gradually erased, but given political boundaries seem unable to account for or define the dynamics of social life. At the same time, sovereignty is indicted as supportive of inequality, internal oppression, external imperialism, racism, and ecological destruction, among other unsavoury features of international social life. In this view, sovereignty is condemned as an ethically deficient way of organizing the international community. This is a confusing and contradictory picture. On the one hand, the boundaries defined by sovereignty appear increasingly irrelevant to international society, and on the other, the very power of sovereignty to demarcate boundaries is decried.

With the Treaty on European Union, or the Maastricht Treaty, into force in November 1993, the member-states of the European Community (EC) appeared to be embarking on a far-reaching enterprise to enhance the authority of Community institutions. Continuing a process that had begun with the Single European Act (SEA), into force in 1987, Maastricht increased the powers of the European Parliament. It established mechanisms whereby EC countries were to seek to improve policy coordination in such diverse areas as social affairs, high technology, border controls, immigration, and anti-crime efforts. It committed the EC members to work toward the establishment of a common foreign and security policy. Most importantly, it laid out a path and timetable for qualified EC members to achieve Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) by the end of the 1990s.

Israel is situated in the Middle East, which is not a zone of peace but rather of turmoil. In contrast to the West where peace has become the norm, the Middle East exists in a different socio-political time zone. It is war-prone and the use of force still evokes remarkable popular support. The Middle East, similar to other Third World regions, displays a greater propensity for intra- and inter-state conflict as compared to the environments of the developed states. Therefore, the Middle East is not about to be transformed into what Karl Deutsch called a ‘security community’, where recourse to arms is not acceptable for the resolution of inter-state conflict.

‘What one can say in an original way about foreign policy is extremely limited. You can apply the basic principles to new situations, but essentially one says the same thing all over again in a different geographic, political, and military context.’ These are the words of Hans J. Morgenthau, spoken towards the end of a life devoted to the study of international politics. Yet was it that simple? And did Morgenthau really say the same things all over again in different geographic, political, and military contexts?

International law, traditional scholars of international politics tell us, is a useless fiction. Statesmen either do not follow legal stipulations or they do so only when it is in their interest to do it. International law plays no independent role in world politics since it can always be reduced to the more fundamental considerations of power politics. National interests simply do not bow to legal requirements.

With characteristic insight, intelligence, and good humour, the eighteenth-century Scottish poet, Robert Burns, once remarked that ‘the best-laid schemes o'mice an men gang aft agley’. Written primarily as a commonsense observation on success and unintentional failure experienced during life's travails, Burns’ witticism does ironically account for much in the world of politics as it functions both within societies and between nation-states. For in international politics, established patterns of action and reaction are often poor guides to resolving complex disputes, whereas innovative, original, and flexible policies, assisted by a good measure of paradox and luck, can sometimes settle the most intractable of problems. Not surprisingly, therefore, political pundits like to stress: ‘Be careful of asking the wrong question, because you may just get the right answer.’