One might respond that policy-makers disclose their intentions in speeches and policy
documents, which can be assessed. The problem with that argument is policy-makers
sometimes lie about or conceal their true intentions. But even if one could determine
another state’s intentions today, there is no way to determine its future intentions. It is
impossible to know who will be running foreign policy in any state five or ten years from
now, much less whether they will have aggressive intentions. This is not to say that states
can be certain that their neighbours have or will have revisionist goals. Instead, the
argument is that policy-makers can never be certain whether they are dealing with a
revisionist or status quo state.