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Realism in Afghanistan: Rethinking an Uncertain Case for the War

Commentary by Anthony H. Cordesman

Published June 16, 2010

There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan.  It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by “spin” or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems.

The Strategic Importance of Afghanistan and the Case for Staying in the War

Two critical questions dominate any realistic discussion of the conflict. The first is whether the war is worth fighting. The second is whether it can be won. The answers to both questions are uncertain. The US has no enduring reason to maintain a strategic presence in Afghanistan or Central Asia. It has far more important strategic priorities in virtually every other part of the world, and inserting itself into Russia’s “near abroad,” China’s sphere of influence, and India’s ambitions makes no real sense. Geography, demographics, logistics, and economics all favor other nations, and no amount of academic hubris can realistically model American reform of the “Stans” in ways that are cost-effective relative to other uses of US resources.

The carefully spun good news story about Afghan minerals may or may not prove to be economically realistic. It is all too typical of a long series of “breadbasket” arguments that take problem countries and argue that their natural resources can make them wealthy or that they can become major exporters of agricultural products. In practice, it will be at least half a decade before Afghanistan’s mineral resources will pay off, and the key outside investors are likely to be Chinese, Russian, and local. It is very unlikely that firms can compete without bribes and incentives as the cost of doing business, and even if US registered companies do invest, they are likely to operate as non–US entities in ways than minimize any economic benefits to the US.

The key reasons for the war remain Al Qa’ida and the threat of a sanctuary and base for international terrorism, and the fact the conflict now involves Pakistan’s future stability. One should have no illusion about today’s insurgents. The leading cadres are far more international in character, far better linked to Al Qa’ida and other international extremist groups, and much closer tied to extremists in Pakistan.  If they “join” an Afghan government while they are still winning (or feel they are winning), they are likely to become such a sanctuary and a symbol of victory that will empower similar extremists all over the world.

Experts disagree sharply about Pakistan’s instability and vulnerability in the face of a US and ISAF defeat in Afghanistan. There is no way to predict how well Pakistan can secure its border and deal with its own Islamic extremists, and Pakistan is both a nuclear state and a far more serious potential source of support to other extremist movements than Afghanistan. A hardline， Deobandi-dominated Pakistan would be a serious strategic threat to the US and its friends and allies, and would sharply increase the risk of another major Indo-Pakistani conflict.

It should be noted, however, that the US may be forced into leaving Afghanistan regardless of its intentions to stay, or face conditions that make any stable form of victory impossible. Containment from the outside may be the only choice, and having to leave Afghanistan does not mean having to abandon Pakistan. Maintaining a major civil and military aid effort to Pakistan, and keeping US capabilities to work with Pakistan in UCAV and other strikes on insurgent networks is also an option. So is working with Russia to support a rebirth of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and to pin down the Taliban and other insurgents as much as possible.

Moreover, it is time to stop demonizing Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida and focus on the broader threat. Massive population increases, poverty, decaying educational and social infrastructure, culture shock and alienation, and failed secularism affect far too much of the Islamic world. Yemen and Somalia are only the two worst cases, and some form of extremist and terrorist threat is likely to be a regional constant for the next two decades –regardless of whether the US and its allies win or lose in Afghanistan. Moreover, the trade-offs involved do raise serious questions about whether the same – or a much lower – investment in helping key allies like Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco would do far more to provide overall security.

The fact is, the strategic case for staying in Afghanistan is uncertain and essentially too close to call. The main reason is instead tactical. We are already there. We have major capabilities in place. If we can demonstrate that the war can be won at reasonable additional cost in dollars and blood, it makes sense to persist. But, only if we can demonstrate we can win and show that the additional cost has reasonable limits . Containment and alternative uses of the same resources are very real options, and would probably be more attractive ones if we could somehow “zero base” history. The reality is, however, that nations rarely get to choose the ideal ground in making strategic decisions. They are prisoners of their past actions, and so are we.

Can This Mission Be Successful? Can We Win?

These uncertainties would be less important if it were possible to argue convincingly that the war can either clearly be won, or must be lost. No one can do this on the basis of the current evidence and indicators.

 “Afghan Good Enough” Versus “Afghan Impossible”

The definition of victory is as much at issue as the question of whether victory is possible. One thing seems clear: The impossible goals and dreams of rapid political and economic development, creation of a Western-style rule of law, and quick progress in human rights was never going to take place even if the challenge had really been post-conflict reconstruction and the insurgency had not been allowed to fester without serious opposition for half a decade. The Afghan Compact, a badly drafted Western constitution, and the Afghan National Development Plan were little more than idealistic dreams decoupled from Afghan realities and Afghan desires.

More than eight years into the war, the last Presidential election is still a political nightmare, the legislative election is in limbo, and Afghan power brokers have become far stronger while Afghan capacity in governance has made limited progress Nearly 40% of the population is partially dependent on UN food aid for basic subsistence, and most Afghans have to do anything they can to survive – whether this involves opium or what the West calls corruption. It is the Taliban that established the real rule of law in many areas, and the civil authorities and police remain largely corrupt and ineffective in much of the country. As for human rights, traditional Afghans remain traditional Afghans, and issues like the rights of women make token progress at best outside the areas where such rights already existed before the Taliban took over.

The case is very different, however, if victory is defined in the way that General McChrystal and other have done in ISAF. They are talking about a much less ambitious end state that would offer most Afghans major benefits as well as achieve a meaningful form of victory. The ISAF command brief defines both the campaign goals and this endstate as follows:

• Assist GIRoA in defeating the insurgency.
• Protect the Afghan population and separate insurgent influence.
• Gain popular support for the government. 
• Allow sustainable progress and promote legitimacy. 
• Prevent the return of transnational terrorists and eliminate potential safe havens.
• Conduct the operation in three stages: A) Gain the Initiative; B) Achieve Strategic Consolidation; and C) Sustain Security.
• Gain the initiative and stop insurgent momentum in the next 12-18 months.
• Establish closer cooperation with the International Community.
• Achieve improved integration and CIV-MIL operational cohesion.
• Insurgency defeated to within GIRoA’s capacity.
• Legitimate governance extends to local levels.
• Socio-economic programs benefit the majority of Afghan people.
• GIRoA, with ISAF support, is capable of assuming the lead for security.

The campaign design and desired end state for Afghanistan is shown in more detail in the chart below, and it effectively limits the goal to effective governance and justice as perceived by Afghans, a stable society free of significant insurgent violence and threats, and a suitable condition for development by Afghans on Afghan terms.

This may fall far short of the goals that the US and other nations set in 2002 and the years that followed, but it is credible and would serve US strategic interests by denying Al Qa’ida, the Taliban, or other insurgents control of the country or major operational areas and sanctuaries.  In short, it is “Afghan good enough,” and not “Afghan impossible,” and is at least a pragmatic definition of the mission and a set of conditions that the US and its allies have some hope of achieving.

This does not, however, alter the fact that even this much more modest definition of the mission -- and of victory -- may still prove to be beyond our ability to achieve. There are several major areas of risk and uncertainty where there simply are not enough facts or precedents to make a credible prediction.

Estimating the Enemy

One key area lies in estimating the enemy and predicting its behavior. The metrics on the Taliban and other insurgents remain ambiguous. General McChrystal seems to be correct in saying that their momentum has been halted, but he has been careful not to say that it has been reversed. ISAF reporting shows the ambiguities in these patterns in considerable detail. It is far from clear that ISAF and the US have as yet won any tactical victories they can exploit in ways that bring lasting stability and transition to capable Afghan governance and security forces. It is equally unclear, however, that the insurgents can hold out against any concentrated offensive, or either take or hold ground in areas where they have limited or no ethnic and religious support.

US and ISAF intelligence estimates raise as many questions as they answer:

• On the one hand, we are still dealing with a relatively small, extreme, and largely unpopular enemy that a number of intelligence experts argue has increasingly divided leadership and whose fighters are tired of the conflict and absentee direction.
• One the other hand, these arguments are uncertain and often made out of any historical context. Most of the successful insurgencies of modern times have been won by groups that suffered major reversals on the battlefield (and were often said to have been defeated), that proved to be far more resilient and adaptable over time than experts calculated, and essentially won the war of political attrition by outlasting their opponents in spite of continuing tactical defeats.

The fact is that this is a duel in strategic endurance, in which it is not possible to predict the level of Taliban capability inside either Afghanistan or Pakistan, Al Qa’ida’s endurance, the level of lasting Afghan and GIRoA support for the war, allied support, Pakistani support, or the support of Congress and the American people. There are also cases of sudden, unpredictable and catalytic collapse on the part of both governments and insurgents. The only way to know is to actually fight the war.

Deadlines and Expectations

One thing is clear: The war will be lost if 2011 is treated as a deadline, and/or if the GIRoA and the Afghan people, the Pakistani government and people, and our allies perceive it as a deadline. The same will be true if the timing of the campaign, and the impact of US and allied actions, are defined in terms of unrealistic expectations. No amount of planning, discussion, and analysis can set clear deadlines for this war.

The current situation is the product of more than eight years of chronic under-resourcing, under-reaction, spin, self-delusion and neglect. It is the result of one of the worst examples of wartime leadership in American history. There is no magic route out of this situation, and the timing of an effective campaign has been complicated by a wide range of factors:

• Karzai, who appeared to have already rigged the election in the summer of 2009, did not rely on power brokering to give him a majority. The controversy following the election consumed 4-6 months, divided Karzai from the US, has led to the resignation of key officials, and left GIRoA with far more uncertain legitimacy while sharply undermining US influence. This has affected every aspect of GIRoA and ANSF support for the war.
• President Obama’s review consumed 4 months of critical time in a 12-18 month campaign plan. The plans for the civilian surge were never credible and led to inevitable delays. Military movements had their own delays, and key elements of operational plans were too conceptual from the start and assumed far more rapid and easy progress in the hold and build phases than proved possible in test areas like Marja.
• President Obama attempted to qualify the deadline he set in his speech for the beginning of US withdrawal in August 2011, but this message has failed to get across in spite of repeated efforts by senior US commanders and officials. Many Afghan officials and officers, and allied officers and diplomats, are at best confused and at worst privately believe that we will leave. Any visitor to Afghanistan also sees efforts at every level to rush operations in time to meet November 2010 and July 2011 reporting deadlines. The end result is that a vague de facto deadline exists. This deadline inevitably affects goals and expectations that have long been set at unrealistically high levels for both civil and military operations. The end result is often that operations and actions that have a far better chance of succeeding over six months to a year longer are being rushed in ways that sharply increase the risk of failure. Moreover, far too little tangible planning is being carried out for the period beyond August 2011, with a sharp decoupling of civil and military plans that separate the military campaign and transition to increasing ANSF responsibility from aid plans that often are far too conceptual and stovepiped and that effectively mark a premature return to “post-conflict reconstruction.”
• Allied war fatigue compounds the problem. Canadian and Netherlands’ withdrawal in 2011, and recent Polish calls for withdrawal, are symbols of the fact that the legislatures and population of many ISAF countries no longer believe in this war. Some of this is unavoidable, given the length and cost of the conflict and the fact that the US obtained much of its present allied support by describing the mission as peacekeeping and post conflict reconstruction, and failed to show effective leadership between 2002 and 2008.
• Much – perhaps a majority – of the foreign aid effort is still directed towards programs and goals that were set before the insurgency cast Afghanistan into a state of war. This effort remains decoupled from the real world security situation and the needs and perceptions of ordinary Afghans. Far too much aid planning and spending exists in a “bubble” that effectively tries to ignore the fact that the nation is at war. It is time that the entire civil effort, and all foreign aid, dealt with the reality that Afghanistan is at war and that aid in governance, economics, and the rule of law must be tailored to this fact, and be transparently accountable in the process.
• Goals have been set for the development of the Afghan National Security Forces that emphasis force quantity over force quality. These goals may well rush a force into the field that is used up in the process, therefore denying a basis for transition from US and allied forces. The end result may well also delay operations and transition by using up key elements of the army and paramilitary ANCOP police force, or risk serious reversals if ISAF tries to rely on the force. The Army is effectively being pushed towards its present short-term force goal two years early, and the ANCOP force is still under so much stress that it has 80% attrition. Moreover, ISAF had only deployed 23% of the required trainers as of early May 2010. Giving NTM-A and the partnering effort even an additional year, and time to put more emphasis on quality and transition over quantity and immediate employment, could make the difference between strategic success and strategic failure.

ISAF has shown considerable realism in adjusting its campaign plans to these facts, but they could still cost the US and its allies the war if a major shift does not take place from the present climate of “over-promise and under-perform” to an acceptance that deadlines do more to undercut support than to motivate, that plans must reflect real world time scales and realistic expectations and goals, and that credibility and leadership depend on “under-promising and over-performing.”

No one can guarantee victory even in the form of the end state described earlier. One can guarantee that it is better to have a credible chance of victory in 2012-2013 than it is to rush to defeat in 2010-2011. Moreover, it is fairly easy to predict the political cost of pretending that the aftermath will not require serious aid expenditures, and US and allied military advisory and support efforts, well beyond 2015. One cannot ask for money through 2015 in DoD and State Department budget documents for FY2012 and simultaneously pretend that the transition to Afghan governance, the ANSF, and Afghan self-financing will be relatively quick. In fact, even the most optimistic estimate of any mining and agricultural development effort indicates that major financial support is likely to be needed through 2020. It is time to be honest about this. Vietnam is a warning of what concealment and denial will do to any lasting political support.

Accepting Afghans as Afghans

The war is not going to be won by treating the power structure of Afghanistan as if it did not exist or as if it could be radically changed in the course of the next few years. The central government is not going to be empowered at the expense of key regional, geographic, ethnic, and sectarian divisions; or suddenly eliminate the role of tribalism and key families. Efforts to reshape governance to create a modern Western structure of “effective governance” that somehow transform all of Afghanistan are simply not going to work. The challenge is to co-opt the power structure, and control its worst elements and behavior, in ways that the Afghan people can accept as a better option than the Taliban. As one experienced aid worker put it, “it is to find their worst grievances, deal with them, and create conditions where they can move forward if they choose to do so.”

This means setting far less ambitious goals for reform and government capacity. It means accepting a major role for existing power brokers, if for no other reason than that there is no credible alternative. The issue is not Western concepts of governance, but what will make GIRoA “good enough” by Afghan popular standards.

The US, its allies, and all aid donors need to take responsibility for much of what is called “corruption.” They failed to understand that Afghans accept informal payments as part of the cost of normal life. They did not consider the real world motivations of people involved in some 30 years of war and turmoil and who had no way to know if any given job or position would last more than a few months.

They failed to see the importance of preserving the Afghan civil service and instead hired many Afghans away from the government. They created a virtually uncontrolled flood of money that could be grabbed by Afghans who had not had any similar opportunities in 30 years, who had limited loyalty or no abstract concept of governance, and who had the resulting ability to take that money to become wealthy and buy power in the process. Organizations like UNAMA and AID have been massively corrupting forces in Afghanistan. So have the US and ISAF military who have given massive amounts of money to poorly supervised contractors and others, who in turn not only buy power with that money, but often pay a tax to insurgents in the process.

These problems have been compounded by an emphasis on anticorruption drives that have had a predictable lack of effect. Rather than threaten the power structure, they lead to hollow investigations, finding scapegoats, shuffling officials from one post to another, and predictable resistance from any Afghan with the clout and wealth to avoid becoming a successful target.

Moreover, all these problems interacted with a past emphasis on building a formal justice system whose resources and timescales were impossibly long and limited in near-term coverage, decoupled from credible policing and detention, and ignored the hopelessly low pay and poor security for judges and prosecutors. The end result bypassed the kind of less formal justice Afghans wanted and needed, left much of the country without effective justice, and empowered the Taliban to the point where it had enough presence to create its own “prompt” justice system. Anticorruption efforts cannot function at the local and regional levels under such circumstances, and creating local police becomes impossible when there is no real justice system for them to support and virtually any power broker or successful criminal can buy their way to the result they want.

In short, winning requires a major adjustment in US, ISAF, and donor acceptance of Afghanistan as it is. It means accelerating efforts to provide full accountability for all aid and military expenditures, tightly controlling the flow of money to power brokers and contractors in ways where the recipients see the incentive to support the war and to limit their abuses, and carefully targeting money to effective and relatively honest Afghan officials at the federal, provincial, district, and local levels in ways where it is clear that the end result benefits the Afghan people and wins support for the government over the Taliban. It means dealing with the real power structure in Afghanistan, not with the formal construct of government.

The Civil-Military Side of the War

All of these challenges combine to add another dimension to the cost-benefit assessment of continuing the war. They all highlight the fact that the war has not one but six centers of gravity,  and they all highlight the fact that the primary risks are civil and not military. As is seen throughout this analysis, the Taliban and insurgents are only one center of gravity. The rest range from GIRoA to ISAF, aid donors, and the lack of unity within the US effort. They include:

• Defeating the insurgency not only in tactical terms, but also by eliminating its control and influence over the population.
• Creating an effective and well resourced NATO/ISAF and US response to defeating the insurgency and securing the population.
• Building up a much larger and more effective (and enduring base for transition) mix of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
• Giving the Afghan government the necessary capacity and legitimacy at the national, regional/provincial, district, and local levels.
• Creating an effective, integrated, and truly operational civil-military effort.
• Coordinating NATO/ISAF, UN, member countries, NGOs, and the international community
• Efforts to focus on winning the war, meeting Afghan needs according to Afghan perceptions, and reducing waste, corruption, and their corrupting impact on Afghans.
• Dealing with a center of gravity outside Afghanistan and NATO/ISAF’s formal mission: The situation in Pakistan, and the actions of Iran and others.

There is little doubt that the US and ISAF can continue to win open tactical clashes. The risks lie primarily in the creation of an ANSF that can actually transition to the point of largely eliminating the role of the US and other ISAF forces in combat, and – above all – creating the effective civil side of a US/ISAF effort that can convince the Afghan people that fighting the war will be worth the cost, that a mix of government capabilities will come to exist that are far better than living under the Taliban, that their basic economic needs can be met, and they have a credible path to economic development.

It was all too easy to formulate a new strategy based on “shape, clear, hold, build, and transition” as long as the civil side of “hold, build, and transition” was conceptual, and did not have to be implemented in rural areas like Marjah and the far more challenging conditions of a largely urban area like Kandahar. It was clear from the start, however, that any practical application of this strategy lacked operational definition on the civil side, that the aid community was not ready to implement it and any civilian “surge” would still leave civil activity highly dependent on the US military, and that building Afghan capabilities would be a slow effort that had to occur at every level from local to central government. It short, implementation was never a military-driven exercise in finding the right troop to task ratio, but always a politico-economic exercise in resource to experiment ratio.

General McChrystal and ISAF deserve praise, not criticism, for accepting these realities. There is a clear need to slow the campaign in Kandahar, to correct the problems that occurred in Marjah, to avoid major combat of the kind that took place in Fallujah, to realistically build government services while finding viable compromises with power brokers, and to move forward on a pace dictated by Afghan acceptance and not US/allied impatience. There are acute limits to any civilian surge, which can only act at the pace that the number of capable US and allied civilians and military personnel with civil-military expertise permits. To paraphrase a lesson from Iraq, the campaign can only succeed if it operates according to Afghan and not US time. As noted earlier, this means that determining whether the war can be won or lost almost certainly should slip from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012. If it does not, it may be a sheer lack of strategic patience – not the other difficulties we face – that loses the war.

At the same time, the fact that the scale of the civil challenge, and ANSF development, are both higher than previously estimated may require more attention to a potential weakness in the overall strategy and campaign plan. Focusing on Kandahar as the greatest challenge makes sense if that challenge can be quickly met. If delays are as inevitable as now seems likely, more attention may well be needed to the less demanding challenges of pushing a much more limited insurgent presence out of the north, west, center, and parts of the east. Reversing insurgent momentum would be much easer to accomplish and would put greater and earlier pressure on the overall mix of insurgents.

The Reality of Continuing Risk

These are not likely to be popular conclusions. They require considerable leadership on the part of the US, as well as close and frank coordination with our allies. Moreover, they require acceptance of the fact that the case for the war is not based on some certainty of victory, but odds that may well be even -- or worse. It is time, however, to come to grips with the sheer scale of the US mistakes that led to the rise of the insurgency in Afghanistan, and to start addressing the reality that we may face many wars in the future against extremists that exploit the weakest and most divided states, fight similar wars of political attrition, and force the US to commit forces and money to weak governments and nations that do not meet many Western expectations.

This is not likely to be a century of confrontations between Western powers fighting conventional wars on their own territory. It is almost certain to be a century where the US must learn to fight irregular wars and exercises in armed nation building whether it likes it or not. If nothing else, the case for the war in Afghanistan may be that it is the prelude to an almost inevitable future.

Anthony H. Cordesman

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Political Realism in International Relations

In the discipline of international relations there are contending general theories or theoretical perspectives. Realism, also known as political realism, is a view of international politics that stresses its competitive and conflictual side. It is usually contrasted with idealism or liberalism, which tends to emphasize cooperation. Realists consider the principal actors in the international arena to be states, which are concerned with their own security, act in pursuit of their own national interests, and struggle for power. The negative side of the realists’ emphasis on power and self-interest is often their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states. National politics is the realm of authority and law, whereas international politics, they sometimes claim, is a sphere without justice, characterized by active or potential conflict among states, where ethical standards do not apply.

Not all realists, however, deny the presence of prescriptive ethics in international relations. The distinction should be drawn between classical realism—represented by such twentieth-century theorists as Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau—and radical or extreme realism. While classical realism emphasizes the concept of national interest, it is not the Machiavellian doctrine “that anything is justified by reason of state” (Bull 1995, 189). Nor does it involve the glorification of war or conflict. The classical realists do not reject the possibility of moral judgment in international politics. Rather, they are critical of moralism—abstract moral discourse that does not take into account political realities. They assign ethical value to successful political action based on prudence: the ability to judge the rightness of a given action from among possible alternatives on the basis of its likely political consequences.

Realism encompasses a variety of approaches and claims a long theoretical tradition. Among its founding fathers, Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes are the names most usually mentioned. Twentieth-century classical realism has today been largely replaced by neorealism, which is an attempt to construct a more scientific approach to the study of international relations. Both classical realism and neorealism have been subjected to criticism from IR theorists representing liberal, critical, and post-modern perspectives. The growing tensions among superpowers have revived the realist-idealist debate in the twenty-first century and have led to a resurgence of interest in the realist tradition.

1.1 Thucydides and the Importance of Power

1.2 machiavelli’s critique of the moral tradition, 1.3 hobbes’s anarchic state of nature, 2.1 e. h. carr’s challenge to utopian idealism, 2.2 hans morgenthau’s realist principles, 3.1 kenneth waltz’s international system, 3.2 objections to neorealism, 4. conclusion: the cautionary and changing character of realism, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the roots of the realist tradition.

Like other classical political theorists, Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 B.C.E.) saw politics as involving moral questions. Most importantly, he asks whether relations among states to which power is crucial can also be guided by the norms of justice. His History of the Peloponnesian War is in fact neither a work of political philosophy nor a sustained theory of international relations. Much of this work, which presents a partial account of the armed conflict between Athens and Sparta that took place from 431 to 404 B.C.E., consists of paired speeches by personages who argue opposing sides of an issue. Nevertheless, if the History is described as the only acknowledged classical text in international relations, and if it inspires theorists from Hobbes to contemporary international relations scholars, this is because it is more than a chronicle of events, and a theoretical position can be extrapolated from it. Realism is expressed in the very first speech of the Athenians recorded in the History —a speech given at the debate that took place in Sparta just before the war. Moreover, a realist perspective is implied in the way Thucydides explains the cause of the Peloponnesian War, and also in the famous “Melian Dialogue,” in the statements made by the Athenian envoys.

1.1.1 General Features of Realism in International Relations

International relations realists emphasize the constraints imposed on politics by the nature of human beings, whom they consider egoistic, and by the absence of international government. Together these factors contribute to a conflict-based paradigm of international relations, in which the key actors are states, in which power and security become the main issues, and in which there is little place for ethical norms. The set of premises concerning state actors, egoism, anarchy, power, security, and ethics that define the realist tradition are all present in Thucydides.

(1) Human nature is a starting point for classical political realism. Realists view human beings as inherently egoistic and self-interested to the extent that self-interest overcomes moral principles. At the debate in Sparta, described in Book I of Thucydides’ History , the Athenians affirm the priority of self-interest over morality. They say that considerations of right and wrong have “never turned people aside from the opportunities of aggrandizement offered by superior strength” (chap. 1 par. 76).

(2) Realists, and especially today’s neorealists, consider the absence of government, literally anarchy , to be the primary determinant of international political outcomes. The lack of a common rule-making and enforcing authority means, they argue, that the international arena is essentially a self-help system. Each state is responsible for its own survival and is free to define its own interests and to pursue power. Anarchy thus leads to a situation in which power has the overriding role in shaping interstate relations. In the words of the Athenian envoys at Melos, without any common authority that can enforce order, “the independent states survive [only] when they are powerful” (5.97).

(3) Insofar as realists envision the world of states as anarchic, they likewise view security as a central issue. To attain security, states try to increase their power and engage in power-balancing for the purpose of deterring potential aggressors. Wars are fought to prevent competing nations from becoming militarily stronger. Thucydides, while distinguishing between the immediate and underlying causes of the Peloponnesian War, does not see its real cause in any of the particular events that immediately preceded its outbreak. He instead locates the cause of the war in the changing distribution of power between the two blocs of Greek city-states: the Delian League, under the leadership of Athens, and the Peloponnesian League, under the leadership of Sparta. According to him, the growth of Athenian power made the Spartans afraid for their security, and thus propelled them into war (1.23). Referring to this situation, Graham Allison has popularized the expression “Thucydides trap” to describe the danger which occurs when a rising power rivals an established one (2017).

(4) Realists are generally skeptical about the relevance of ethics to international politics. This can lead them to claim that there is no place for morality in the prescriptive sense in international relations, or that there is a tension between demands of morality and requirements of successful political action, or that states have their own morality that is different from customary morality, or that morality, if employed at all, is merely used instrumentally to justify states’ conduct. A clear case of the rejection of ethical norms in relations among states can be found in the “Melian Dialogue” (5.85–113). This dialogue relates to the events of 416 B.C.E., when Athens invaded the island of Melos. The Athenian envoys presented the Melians with a choice, destruction or surrender, and from the outset asked them not to appeal to justice, but to think only about their survival. In the envoys’ words, “We both know that the decisions about justice are made in human discussions only when both sides are under equal compulsion, but when one side is stronger, it gets as much as it can, and the weak must accept that” (5.89). To be “under equal compulsion” means to be under the force of law, and thus to be subjected to a common lawgiving authority (Korab-Karpowicz 2006, 234). Since such an authority above states does not exist, the Athenians argue that in this lawless condition of international anarchy, the only right is the right of the stronger to dominate the weaker. They explicitly equate right with might, and exclude considerations of justice from foreign affairs.

1.1.2 The “Melian Dialogue”—The First Realist-Idealist Debate

We can thus find strong support for a realist perspective in the statements of the Athenians. The question remains, however, to what extent their realism coincides with Thucydides’ own viewpoint. Although substantial passages of the “Melian Dialogue,” as well as other parts of the History support a realistic reading, Thucydides’ position cannot be deduced from such selected fragments, but rather must be assessed on the basis of the wider context of his book. In fact, even the “Melian Dialogue” itself provides us with a number of contending views.

Political realism is usually contrasted by IR scholars with idealism or liberalism, a theoretical perspective that emphasizes international norms, interdependence among states, and international cooperation. The “Melian Dialogue,” which is one of the most frequently commented-upon parts of Thucydides’ History , presents the classic debate between the idealist and realist views: Can international politics be based on a moral order derived from the principles of justice, or will it forever remain the arena of conflicting national interests and power?

For the Melians, who employ idealistic arguments, the choice is between war and subjection (5.86). They are courageous and love their country. They do not wish to lose their freedom, and in spite of the fact that they are militarily weaker than the Athenians, they are prepared to defend themselves (5.100; 5.112). They base their arguments on an appeal to justice, which they associate with fairness, and regard the Athenians as unjust (5.90; 5.104). They are pious, believing that gods will support their just cause and compensate for their weakness, and trust in alliances, thinking that their allies, the Spartans, who are also related to them, will help them (5.104; 5.112). Hence, one can identify in the speech of the Melians elements of the idealistic or liberal world view: the belief that nations have the right to exercise political independence, that they have mutual obligations to one another and will carry out such obligations, and that a war of aggression is unjust. What the Melians nevertheless lack are resources and foresight. In their decision to defend themselves, they are guided more by their hopes than by the evidence at hand or by prudent calculations.

The Athenian argument is based on key realist concepts such as security and power, and is informed not by what the world should be, but by what it is. The Athenians disregard any moral talk and urge the Melians to look at the facts—that is, to recognize their military inferiority, to consider the potential consequences of their decision, and to think about their own survival (5.87; 5.101). There appears to be a powerful realist logic behind the Athenian arguments. Their position, based on security concerns and self-interest, seemingly involves reliance on rationality, intelligence, and foresight. However, upon close examination, their logic proves to be seriously flawed. Melos, a relatively weak state, does not pose any real security threat to them. The eventual destruction of Melos does not change the course of the Peloponnesian War, which Athens will lose a few years later.

In the History , Thucydides shows that power, if it is unrestrained by moderation and a sense of justice, brings about the uncontrolled desire for more power. There are no logical limits to the size of an empire. Drunk with the prospect of glory and gain, after conquering Melos, the Athenians engage in a war against Sicily. They pay no attention to the Melian argument that considerations of justice are useful to all in the longer run (5.90). And, as the Athenians overestimate their strength and in the end lose the war, their self-interested logic proves to be very shortsighted indeed.

It is utopian to ignore the reality of power in international relations, but it is equally blind to rely on power alone. Thucydides appears to support neither the naive idealism of the Melians nor the cynicism of their Athenian opponents. He teaches us to be on guard “against naïve-dreaming on international politics,” on the one hand, and “against the other pernicious extreme: unrestrained cynicism,” on the other (Donnelly 2000, 193). If he can be regarded as a political realist, his realism nonetheless prefigures neither realpolitik , in which prescriptive ethics is rejected, nor today’s scientific neorealism, in which moral questions are largely ignored. Thucydides’ realism, neither immoral nor amoral, can rather be compared to that of Hans Morgenthau, Raymond Aron, and other twentieth-century classical realists, who, although sensible to the demands of national interest, would not deny that political actors on the international scene are subject to moral judgment.

Idealism in international relations, like realism, can lay claim to a long tradition. Unsatisfied with the world as they have found it, idealists have always tried to answer the question of “what ought to be” in politics. Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero were all political idealists who believed that there were some universal moral values on which political life could be based. Building on the work of his predecessors, Cicero developed the idea of a natural moral law that was applicable to both domestic and international politics. His ideas concerning righteousness in war were carried further in the writings of the Christian thinkers St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In the late fifteenth century, when Niccolò Machiavelli was born, the idea that politics, including the relations among states, should be virtuous, and that the methods of warfare should remain subordinated to ethical standards, still predominated in political literature.

Machiavelli (1469–1527) challenged this well-established moral tradition, thus positioning himself as a political innovator. The novelty of his approach lies in his critique of classical Western political thought as unrealistic, aiming too high, and in his separation of politics from ethics. He thereby lays the foundations for modern politics focussed on self-interest. In chapter XV of The Prince , Machiavelli announces that in departing from the teachings of earlier thinkers, he seeks “the effectual truth of the matter rather than the imagined one.” The “effectual truth” is for him the only truth worth seeking. It represents the sum of the practical conditions that he believes are required to make both the individual and the country prosperous and strong. Machiavelli replaces the ancient virtue (a moral quality of the individual, such as justice or self-restraint) with virtù , ability or vigor. As a prophet of virtù , he promises to lead both nations and individuals to earthly glory and power.

Machiavellianism is a radical type of political realism that is applied to both domestic and international affairs. It is sometimes called realpolitik , and is a doctrine which denies the relevance of ethics in politics, and claims that all means (moral and immoral) are justified to achieve certain political ends. Although Machiavelli never uses the phrase ragione di stato or its French equivalent, raison d’état , what ultimately counts for him is precisely that: whatever is good for the state, rather than ethical scruples or norms

Machiavelli justified immoral actions in politics, but never refused to admit that they are evil. He operated within the single framework of traditional morality. It became a specific task of his nineteenth-century followers to develop the doctrine of a double ethics: one public and one private, to push Machiavellian realism to even further extremes, and to apply it to international relations. By asserting that “the state has no higher duty than of maintaining itself,” Hegel gave an ethical sanction to the state’s promotion of its own interest and advantage against other states (Meinecke 357). Thus he overturned the traditional beliefs about morality. The good of the state was perversely interpreted by him as the highest moral value, with the extension of national power regarded as a nation’s right and duty. Then, referring to Machiavelli, Heinrich von Treitschke declared that the state was power, precisely in order to assert itself as against other equally independent powers, and that the supreme moral duty of the state was to foster this power. He considered international agreements to be binding only insofar as it was expedient for the state. The idea of an autonomous ethics of state behavior and the concept of realpolitik were thus introduced. Traditional, customary ethics was denied and power politics was associated with a “higher” type of morality. These concepts, along with the belief in the superiority of Germanic culture, served as weapons with which German statesmen, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War, justified their policies of conquest and extermination.

Machiavelli is often praised for his prudential advice to leaders (which has caused him to be regarded as a founding master of modern political strategy) and for his defense of the republican form of government. There are certainly many aspects of his thought that merit such praise. Nevertheless, it is also possible to see him as the thinker who bears foremost responsibility for the de-moralization of Europe. The argument of the Athenian envoys presented in Thucydides’ “Melian Dialogue,” that of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic , or that of Carneades, to whom Cicero refers—all of these challenge the ancient and Christian views of the unity of politics and ethics. However, before Machiavelli, this amoral or immoral mode of thinking had never prevailed in the mainstream of Western political thought. It was the force and timeliness of his justification of resorting to evil as a legitimate means of achieving political ends that persuaded so many of the thinkers and political practitioners who followed him. The effects of Machiavellian ideas, such as the notion that the employment of all possible means was permissible in war, would be seen on the battlefields of modern Europe, as mass citizen armies fought against each other to the bitter end without regard for the rules of justice. The tension between expediency and morality lost its validity in the sphere of politics. The concept of a double ethics that created a further damage to traditional morality, was invented. The doctrine of raison d’état ultimately led to the politics of Lebensraum , two world wars, and the Holocaust.

Perhaps the greatest problem with realism in international relations is that it has a tendency to slip into its extreme version, which accepts any policy that can benefit the state at the expense of other states, no matter how morally problematic the policy is. Even if they do not explicitly raise ethical questions, in the works of Waltz and of many other of today’s neorealists, a double ethics, public and private, is presupposed, and words such realpolitik no longer have the negative connotations that they had for classical realists, such as Hans Morgenthau.

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1683) was part of an intellectual movement whose goal was to free the emerging modern science from the constraints of the classical and scholastic heritage. According to classical political philosophy, on which the idealist perspective is based, human beings can control their desires through reason and can work for the benefit of others, even at the expense of their own benefit. They are thus both rational and moral agents, capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and of making moral choices. They are also naturally social. With great skill Hobbes attacks these views. His human beings, extremely individualistic rather than moral or social, are subject to “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceases only in death” ( Leviathan XI 2). They therefore inevitably struggle for power. In setting out such ideas, Hobbes contributes to some of the basic conceptions fundamental to the realist tradition in international relations, and especially to neorealism. These include the characterization of human nature as egoistic, the concept of international anarchy, and the view that politics, rooted in the struggle for power, can be rationalized and studied scientifically.

One of the most widely known Hobbesian concepts is that of the anarchic state of nature, seen as entailing a state of war—and “such a war as is of every man against every man” (XII 8). He derives his notion of the state of war from his views of both human nature and the condition in which individuals exist. Since in the state of nature there is no government and everyone enjoys equal status, every individual has a right to everything; that is, there are no constraints on an individual’s behavior. Anyone may at any time use force, and all must constantly be ready to counter such force with force. Hence, driven by acquisitiveness, having no moral restraints, and motivated to compete for scarce goods, individuals are apt to “invade” one another for gain. Being suspicious of one another and driven by fear, they are also likely to engage in preemptive actions and invade one another to ensure their own safety. Finally, individuals are also driven by pride and a desire for glory. Whether for gain, safety, or reputation, power-seeking individuals will thus “endeavor to destroy or subdue one another” (XIII 3). In such uncertain conditions where everyone is a potential aggressor, making war on others is a more advantageous strategy than peaceable behavior, and one needs to learn that domination over others is necessary for one’s own continued survival.

Hobbes is primarily concerned with the relationship between individuals and the state, and his comments about relations among states are scarce. Nevertheless, what he says about the lives of individuals in the state of nature can also be interpreted as a description of how states exist in relation to one another. Once states are established, the individual drive for power becomes the basis for the states’ behavior, which often manifests itself in their efforts to dominate other states and peoples. States, “for their own security,” writes Hobbes, “enlarge their dominions upon all pretences of danger and fear of invasion or assistance that may be given to invaders, [and] endeavour as much as they can, to subdue and weaken their neighbors” (XIX 4). Accordingly, the quest and struggle for power lies at the core of the Hobbesian vision of relations among states. The same would later be true of the model of international relations developed by Hans Morgenthau, who was deeply influenced by Hobbes and adopted the same view of human nature. Similarly, the neorealist Kenneth Waltz would follow Hobbes’ lead regarding international anarchy (the fact that sovereign states are not subject to any higher common sovereign) as the essential element of international relations.

By subjecting themselves to a sovereign, individuals escape the war of all against all which Hobbes associates with the state of nature; however, this war continues to dominate relations among states. This does not mean that states are always fighting, but rather that they have a disposition to fight (XIII 8). With each state deciding for itself whether or not to use force, war may break out at any time. The achievement of domestic security through the creation of a state is then paralleled by a condition of inter-state insecurity. One can argue that if Hobbes were fully consistent, he would agree with the notion that, to escape this condition, states should also enter into a contract and submit themselves to a world sovereign. Although the idea of a world state would find support among some of today’s realists, this is not a position taken by Hobbes himself. He does not propose that a social contract among nations be implemented to bring international anarchy to an end. This is because the condition of insecurity in which states are placed does not necessarily lead to insecurity for their citizens. As long as an armed conflict or other type of hostility between states does not actually break out, individuals within a state can feel relatively secure.

The denial of the existence of universal moral principles and norms in the relations among states brings Hobbes close to the Machiavellians and the followers of the doctrine of raison d’état . His theory of international relations, which assumes that independent states, like independent individuals, are enemies by nature, asocial and selfish, and that there is no moral limitation on their behavior, is a great challenge to the idealist political vision based on human sociability and to the concept of the international jurisprudence that is built on this vision. However, what separates Hobbes from Machiavelli and associates him more with classical realism is his insistence on the defensive character of foreign policy. His political theory does not put forward the invitation to do whatever may be advantageous for the state. His approach to international relations is prudential and pacific: sovereign states, like individuals, should be disposed towards peace which is commended by reason.

What Waltz and other neorealist readers of Hobbes’s works sometimes overlook is that he does not perceive international anarchy as an environment without any rules. By suggesting that certain dictates of reason apply even in the state of nature, he affirms that more peaceful and cooperative international relations are possible. Neither does he deny the existence of international law. Sovereign states can sign treaties with one another to provide a legal basis for their relations. At the same time, however, Hobbes seems aware that international rules will often prove ineffective in restraining the struggle for power. States will interpret them to their own advantage, and so international law will be obeyed or ignored according to the interests of the states affected. Hence, international relations will always tend to be a precarious affair. This grim view of global politics lies at the core of Hobbes’s realism.

2. Twentieth Century Classical Realism

Twentieth-century realism was born in response to the idealist perspective that dominated international relations scholarship in the aftermath of the First World War. The idealists of the 1920s and 1930s (also called liberal internationalists or utopians) had the goal of building peace in order to prevent another world conflict. They saw the solution to inter-state problems as being the creation of a respected system of international law, backed by international organizations. This interwar idealism resulted in the founding of the League of Nations in 1920 and in the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlements of disputes. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, scholars such as Norman Angell, Alfred Zimmern, and Raymond B. Fosdick, and other prominent idealists of the era, gave their intellectual support to the League of Nations. Instead of focusing on what some might see as the inevitability of conflict between states and peoples, they chose to emphasize the common interests that could unite humanity, and attempted to appeal to rationality and morality. For them, war did not originate in an egoistic human nature, but rather in imperfect social conditions and political arrangements, which could be improved. Yet their ideas were already being criticized in the early 1930s by Reinhold Niebuhr and within a few years by E. H. Carr. The League of Nations, which the United States never joined, and from which Japan and Germany withdrew, could not prevent the outbreak of the Second World War. This fact, perhaps more than any theoretical argument, contributed to the development of the realist theory. Although the United Nations, founded in 1945, can still be regarded as a product of idealist political thinking, the discipline of international relations was profoundly influenced in the initial years of the post-war period by the works of “classical” realists such as John H. Herz, Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, and Raymond Aron. Then, during the 1950s and 1960s, classical realism came under challenge of scholars who tried to introduce a more scientific approach to the study of international politics. During the 1980s it gave way to another trend in international relations theory—neorealism.

Since it is impossible within the scope of this article to introduce all of the thinkers who contributed to the development of twentieth-century classical realism, E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau, as perhaps the most influential among them, have been selected for discussion here.

In his main work on international relations, The Twenty Years’ Crisis , first published in July 1939, Edward Hallett Carr (1892–1982) attacks the idealist position, which he describes as “utopianism.” He characterizes this position as encompassing faith in reason, confidence in progress, a sense of moral rectitude, and a belief in an underlying harmony of interests. According to the idealists, war is an aberration in the course of normal life and the way to prevent it is to educate people for peace, and to build systems of collective security such as the League of Nations or today’s United Nations. Carr challenges idealism by questioning its claim to moral universalism and its idea of the harmony of interests. He declares that “morality can only be relative, not universal” (19), and states that the doctrine of the harmony of interests is invoked by privileged groups “to justify and maintain their dominant position” (75).

Carr uses the concept of the relativity of thought, which he traces to Marx and other modern theorists, to show that standards by which policies are judged are the products of circumstances and interests. His central idea is that the interests of a given party always determine what this party regards as moral principles, and hence, these principles are not universal. Carr observes that politicians, for example, often use the language of justice to cloak the particular interests of their own countries, or to create negative images of other people to justify acts of aggression. The existence of such instances of morally discrediting a potential enemy or morally justifying one’s own position shows, he argues, that moral ideas are derived from actual policies. Policies are not, as the idealists would have it, based on some universal norms, independent of interests of the parties involved.

If specific ethical standards are de facto founded on interests, Carr’s argument goes, there are also interests underlying what are regarded as absolute principles or universal moral values. While the idealists tend to regard such values, such as peace or justice, as universal and claim that upholding them is in the interest of all, Carr argues against this view. According to him, there are neither universal values nor universal interests. He claims that those who refer to universal interests are in fact acting in their own interests (71). They think that what is best for them is best for everyone, and identify their own interests with the universal interest of the world at large.

The idealist concept of the harmony of interests is based on the notion that human beings can rationally recognize that they have some interests in common, and that cooperation is therefore possible. Carr contrasts this idea with the reality of conflict of interests . According to him, the world is torn apart by the particular interests of different individuals and groups. In such a conflictual environment, order is based on power, not on morality. Further, morality itself is the product of power (61). Like Hobbes, Carr regards morality as constructed by the particular legal system that is enforced by a coercive power. International ethical norms are imposed on other countries by dominant nations or groups of nations that present themselves as the international community as a whole. They are invented to perpetuate those nations’ dominance.

Values that idealists view as good for all, such as peace, social justice, prosperity, and international order, are regarded by Carr as mere status quo notions. The powers that are satisfied with the status quo regard the arrangement in place as just and therefore preach peace. They try to rally everyone around their idea of what is good. “Just as the ruling class in a community prays for domestic peace, which guarantees its own security and predominance, … so international peace becomes a special vested interest of predominant powers” (76). On the other hand, the unsatisfied powers consider the same arrangement as unjust, and so prepare for war. Hence, the way to obtain peace, if it cannot be simply enforced, is to satisfy the unsatisfied powers. “Those who profit most by [international] order can in the longer run only hope to maintain it by making sufficient concessions to make it tolerable to those who profit by it least” (152). The logical conclusion to be drawn by the reader of Carr’s book is the policy of appeasement.

Carr was a sophisticated thinker. He recognized himself that the logic of “pure realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society impossible” (87). Although he demolishes what he calls “the current utopia” of idealism, he at the same time attempts to build “a new utopia,” a realist world order ( ibid .). Thus, he acknowledges that human beings need certain fundamental principles or beliefs that are shared across different cultures, and contradicts his own earlier argument by which he tries to deny universality to any norms or values. To make further objections to his position, the fact, as he claims, that the language of universal values can be misused in politics for the benefit of one party or another, and that such values can only be imperfectly implemented in political institutions, does not mean that such values do not exist. There is a deep yearning in many human beings, both privileged and unprivileged, for peace, order, prosperity, and justice. The legitimacy of idealism consists in the constant attempt to reflect upon and uphold these values. Idealists fail if in their attempt they do not pay enough attention to the reality of power. On the other hand, in the world of “pure realism,” in which all values are made relative to interests, life turns into nothing more than a power game and is unbearable.

The Twenty Years’ Crisis touches on a number of universal ideas, but it also reflects the spirit of its time. While we can fault the interwar idealists for their inability to construct international institutions strong enough to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War, this book indicates that interwar realists were likewise unprepared to meet the challenge. Carr frequently refers to Germany under Nazi rule as if it were a country like any other. He says that should Germany cease to be an unsatisfied power and “become supreme in Europe,” it would adopt a language of international solidarity similar to that of other Western powers (79). The inability of Carr and other realists to recognize the perilous nature of Nazism, and their belief that Germany could be satisfied by territorial concessions, helped to foster a political environment in which the latter was to grow in power, annex Czechoslovakia at will, and be militarily opposed in September 1939 by Poland alone.

A theory of international relations is not just an intellectual enterprise; it has practical consequences. It influences our thinking and political practice. On the practical side, the realists of the 1930s, to whom Carr gave intellectual support, were people opposed to the system of collective security embodied in the League of Nations. Working within the foreign policy establishments of the day, they contributed to its weakness. Once they had weakened the League, they pursued a policy of appeasement and accommodation with Germany as an alternative to collective security (Ashworth 46). After the annexation of Czechoslovakia, when the failure of the anti-League realist conservatives gathered around Neville Chamberlain and of this policy became clear, they tried to rebuild the very security system they had earlier demolished. Those who supported collective security were labeled idealists.

Hans J. Morgenthau (1904–1980) developed realism into a comprehensive international relations theory. Influenced by the Protestant theologian and political writer Reinhold Niebuhr, as well as by Hobbes, he places selfishness and power-lust at the center of his picture of human existence. The insatiable human lust for power, timeless and universal, which he identifies with animus dominandi , the desire to dominate, is for him the main cause of conflict. As he asserts in his main work, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace , first published in 1948, “international politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power” (25).

Morgenthau systematizes realism in international relations on the basis of six principles that he includes in the second edition of Politics among Nations . As a traditionalist, he opposes the so-called scientists (the scholars who, especially in the 1950s, tried to reduce the discipline of international relations to a branch of behavioral science). Nevertheless, in the first principle he states that realism is based on objective laws that have their roots in unchanging human nature (4). He wants to develop realism into both a theory of international politics and a political art, a useful tool of foreign policy.

The keystone of Morgenthau’s realist theory is the concept of power or “of interest defined in terms of power,” which informs his second principle: the assumption that political leaders “think and act in terms of interest defined as power” (5). This concept defines the autonomy of politics, and allows for the analysis of foreign policy regardless of the different motives, preferences, and intellectual and moral qualities of individual politicians. Furthermore, it is the foundation of a rational picture of politics.

Although, as Morgenthau explains in the third principle, interest defined as power is a universally valid category, and indeed an essential element of politics, various things can be associated with interest or power at different times and in different circumstances. Its content and the manner of its use are determined by the political and cultural environment.

In the fourth principle, Morgenthau considers the relationship between realism and ethics. He says that while realists are aware of the moral significance of political action, they are also aware of the tension between morality and the requirements of successful political action. “Universal moral principles,” he asserts, “cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation, but …they must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place” (9). These principles must be accompanied by prudence for as he cautions “there can be no political morality without prudence; that is, without consideration of the political consequences of seemingly moral action” ( ibid .).

Prudence, the ability to judge the rightness of a given action from among possible alternatives on the basis of its likely political consequences, and not conviction of one’s own moral or ideological superiority, should guide political decisions. This is stressed in the fifth principle, where Morgenthau again emphasizes the idea that all state actors, including our own, must be looked at solely as political entities pursuing their respective interests defined in terms of power. By taking this point of view vis-à-vis its counterparts and thus avoiding ideological confrontation, a state would then be able to pursue policies that respected the interests of other states, while protecting and promoting its own.

Insofar as power, or interest defined as power, is the concept that defines politics, politics is an autonomous sphere, as Morgenthau says in his sixth principle of realism. It cannot be subordinated to ethics. However, ethics does still play a role in politics. “A man who was nothing but ‘political man’ would be a beast, for he would be completely lacking in moral restraints. A man who was nothing but ‘moral man’ would be a fool, for he would be completely lacking in prudence” (12). Political art requires that these two dimensions of human life, power and morality, be taken into consideration.

While Morgenthau’s six principles of realism contain repetitions and inconsistencies, we can nonetheless obtain from them the following picture: Power or interest is the central concept that makes politics into an autonomous discipline. Rational state actors pursue their national interests. Therefore, a rational theory of international politics can be constructed. Such a theory is not concerned with the morality, religious beliefs, motives or ideological preferences of individual political leaders. It also indicates that in order to avoid conflicts, states should avoid moral crusades or ideological confrontations, and look for compromise based solely on satisfaction of their mutual interests.

Although he defines politics as an autonomous sphere, Morgenthau does not separate ethics from politics. The act of protecting one’s country has for him a deep moral significance. Ultimately directed toward the objective of national survival, it involves prudence that is related to choosing the best course of action. The effective protection of citizens’ lives from harm in case of an international armed conflict is not merely a forceful physical action; it also has prudential and moral dimensions.

Morgenthau regards realism as a way of thinking about international relations and a useful tool for devising policies. However, some of the basic conceptions of his theory, and especially the idea of conflict as stemming from human nature, as well as the concept of power itself, have provoked criticism.

International politics, like all politics, is for Morgenthau a struggle for power because of the basic human lust for power. But regarding every individual as being engaged in a perpetual quest for power—the view that he shares with Hobbes—is a questionable premise. Human nature cannot be revealed by observation and experiment. It cannot be proved by any empirical research, but only disclosed by philosophy, imposed on us as a matter of belief, and inculcated by education.

Morgenthau himself reinforces the belief in the human drive for power by introducing a normative aspect of his theory, which is rationality. A rational foreign policy is considered “to be a good foreign policy” (7). But he defines rationality as a process of calculating the costs and benefits of all alternative policies in order to determine their relative utility, i.e. their ability to maximize power. Statesmen “think and act in terms of interest defined as power” (5). Only intellectual weakness of policy makers can result in foreign policies that deviate from a rational course aimed at minimizing risks and maximizing benefits. Hence, rather than presenting an actual portrait of human affairs, Morgenthau emphasizes the pursuit of power and the rationality of this pursuit, and sets it up as a norm.

As Raymond Aron and other scholars have noticed, power, the fundamental concept of Morgenthau’s realism, is ambiguous. It can be either a means or an end in politics. But if power is only a means for gaining something else, it does not define the nature of international politics in the way Morgenthau claims. It does not allow us to understand the actions of states independently from the motives and ideological preferences of their political leaders. It cannot serve as the basis for defining politics as an autonomous sphere. Morgenthau’s principles of realism are thus open to doubt. “Is this true,” Aron asks, “that states, whatever their regime, pursue the same kind of foreign policy” (597) and that the foreign policies of Napoleon or Stalin are essentially identical to those of Hitler, Louis XVI or Nicholas II, amounting to no more than the struggle for power? “If one answers yes, then the proposition is incontestable, but not very instructive” (598). Accordingly, it is useless to define actions of states by exclusive reference to power, security or national interest. International politics cannot be studied independently of the wider historical and cultural context.

Carr and Morgenthau concentrate primarily on international relations. However, their political realism can also be applied to domestic politics. To be a classical realist is in general to perceive politics as a conflict of interests and a struggle for power, and to seek peace by recognizing common interests and trying to satisfy them, rather than by moralizing. Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss, influential representatives of the new political realism, a movement in contemporary political theory, criticize what they describe as “political moralism” and stress the autonomy of politics against ethics. However, political theory realism and international relations realism seem like two separate research programs. As noted by several scholars (William Scheuerman, Alison McQueen, Terry Nardin. Duncan Bell), those who contribute to realism in political theory give little attention to those who work on realism in international politics.

3. Neorealism

In spite of its ambiguities and weaknesses, Morgenthau’s Politics among Nations became a standard textbook and influenced thinking about international politics for a generation or so. At the same time, there was an attempt to develop a more methodologically rigorous approach to theorizing about international affairs. In the 1950s and 1960s a large influx of scientists from different fields entered the discipline of International Relations and attempted to replace the “wisdom literature” of classical realists with scientific concepts and reasoning (Brown 35). This in turn provoked a counterattack by Morgenthau and scholars associated with the so-called English School, especially Hedley Bull, who defended a traditional approach (Bull 1966).

As a result, the discipline of international relations has been divided into two main strands: traditional or non-positivist and scientific or positivist (neo-positivist). At a later stage the third strand: post-positivism has been added. The traditionalists raise normative questions and engage with history, philosophy and law. The scientists or positivists stress a descriptive and explanatory form of inquiry, rather than a normative one. They have established a strong presence in the field. Already by the mid-1960s, the majority of American students in international relations were trained in quantitative research, game theory, and other new research techniques of the social sciences. This, along with the changing international environment, had a significant effect on the discipline.

Notwithstanding their methodological differences, realists’ assumption is that the state is the key actor in international politics, and that competitive and conflictual relations among states are the core of actual international relations. However, with the receding of the Cold War during the 1970s, one could witness the growing importance of other actors: international and non-governmental organizations, as well as of multinational corporations. This development led to a revival of idealist thinking, which became known as neoliberalism or pluralism. While accepting some basic assumptions of realism, the leading pluralists, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, have proposed the concept of complex interdependence to describe this more sophisticated picture of global politics. They would argue that states could effectively cooperate with each other for mutual benefit and there can be progress in international relations, and that the future does not need to look like the past.

The realist retort came most prominently from Kenneth N. Waltz, who reformulated realism in international relations in a new and distinctive way. In his book Theory of International Politics , first published in 1979, he responded to the liberal challenge and attempted to cure the defects of the classical realism of Hans Morgenthau with his more scientific approach, which has become known as structural realism or neorealism. Whereas Morgenthau rooted his theory in the struggle for power, which he related to human nature, Waltz made an effort to avoid any philosophical discussion of human nature, and set out instead to build a theory of international politics using microeconomics as a model. In his works, he argues that states in the international system are like firms in a domestic economy and have the same fundamental interest: to survive. “Internationally, the environment of states’ actions, or the structure of their system, is set by the fact that some states prefer survival over other ends obtainable in the short run and act with relative efficiency to achieve that end” (93).

Waltz maintains that by paying attention to the individual state, and to ideological, moral and economic issues, both traditional liberals and classical realists make the same mistake. They fail to develop a serious account of the international system—one that can be abstracted from the wider socio-political domain. Waltz acknowledges that such an abstraction distorts reality and omits many of the factors that were important for classical realism. It does not allow for the analysis of the development of specific foreign policies. However, it also has utility. Notably, it assists in understanding the primary determinants of international politics. To be sure, Waltz’s neorealist theory cannot be applied to domestic politics. It cannot serve to develop policies of states concerning their international or domestic affairs. His theory helps only to explain why states behave in similar ways despite their different forms of government and diverse political ideologies, and why, despite their growing interdependence, the overall picture of international relations is unlikely to change.

According to Waltz, the uniform behavior of states over centuries can be explained by the constraints on their behavior that are imposed by the structure of the international system. A system’s structure is defined first by the principle by which it is organized, then by the differentiation of its units, and finally by the distribution of capabilities (power) across units. Anarchy, or the absence of central authority, is for Waltz the ordering principle of the international system. The units of the international system are states. Waltz recognizes the existence of non-state actors, but dismisses them as relatively unimportant. Since all states want to survive, and anarchy presupposes a self-help system in which each state has to take care of itself, there is no division of labor or functional differentiation among them. While functionally similar, they are nonetheless distinguished by their relative capabilities (the power each of them represents) to perform the same function.

Consequently, Waltz sees power and state behavior in a different way from the classical realists. For Morgenthau power was both a means and an end, and rational state behavior was understood as simply the course of action that would accumulate the most power. In contrast, neorealists assume that the fundamental interest of each state is security and would therefore concentrate on the distribution of power. What also sets neorealism apart from classical realism is methodological rigor and scientific self-conception (Guzinni 1998, 127–128). Waltz insists on empirical testability of knowledge and on falsificationism as a methodological ideal, which, as he himself admits, can have only a limited application in international relations.

The distribution of capabilities among states can vary; however, anarchy, the ordering principle of international relations, remains unchanged. This has a lasting effect on the behavior of states that become socialized into the logic of self-help. Trying to refute neoliberal ideas concerning the effects of interdependence, Waltz identifies two reasons why the anarchic international system limits cooperation: insecurity and unequal gains. In the context of anarchy, each state is uncertain about the intentions of others and is afraid that the possible gains resulting from cooperation may favor other states more than itself, and thus lead it to dependence on others. “States do not willingly place themselves in situations of increased dependence. In a self-help system, considerations of security subordinate economic gain to political interest.” (Waltz 1979, 107).

Because of its theoretical elegance and methodological rigor, neorealism has become very influential within the discipline of international relations. In the eyes of many scholars, Morgenthau’s realism has come to be seen as anachronistic—“an interesting and important episode in the history of thinking about the subject, no doubt, but one scarcely to be seen as a serious contribution of the rigorously scientific theory” (Williams 2007, 1). However, while initially gaining more acceptance than classical realism, neorealism has also provoked strong critiques on a number of fronts.

In 1979 Waltz wrote that in the nuclear age the international bipolar system, based on two superpowers—the United States and the Soviet Union—was not only stable but likely to persist (176–7). With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent disintegration of the USSR this prediction was proven wrong. The bipolar world turned out to have been more precarious than most realist analysts had supposed. Its end opened new possibilities and challenges related to globalization. This has led many critics to argue that neorealism, like classical realism, cannot adequately account for changes in world politics.

The new debate between international (neo)realists and (neo)liberals is no longer concerned with the questions of morality and human nature, but with the extent to which state behavior is influenced by the anarchic structure of the international system rather than by institutions, learning and other factors that are conductive to cooperation. In his 1989 book International Institutions and State Power , Robert Keohane accepts Waltz’s emphasis on system-level theory and his general assumption that states are self-interested actors that rationally pursue their goals. However, by employing game theory he shows that states can widen the perception of their self-interest through economic cooperation and involvement in international institutions. Patterns of interdependence can thus affect world politics. Keohane calls for systemic theories that would be able to deal better with factors affecting state interaction, and with change.

Critical theorists, such as Robert W. Cox, also focus on the alleged inability of neorealism to deal with change. In their view, neorealists take a particular, historically determined state-based structure of international relations and assume it to be universally valid. In contrast, critical theorists believe that by analyzing the interplay of ideas, material factors, and social forces, one can understand how this structure has come about, and how it may eventually change (Cox 1986). They contend that neorealism ignores both the historical process during which identities and interests are formed, and the diverse methodological possibilities. It legitimates the existing status quo of strategic relations among states and considers the scientific method as the only way of obtaining knowledge. It represents an exclusionary practice, an interest in domination and control.

While realists are concerned with relations among states and national security, the focus for critical theorists is human security and social emancipation. They focus on social, economic and environmental security for the individual and the group. Despite their differences, critical theory, postmodernism and feminism all take issue with the notion of state sovereignty and envision new political communities that would be less exclusionary vis-à-vis marginal and disenfranchised groups. Critical theory argues against state-based exclusion and denies that the interests of a country’s citizens take precedence over those of outsiders. It insists that politicians should give as much weight to the interests of foreigners as they give to those of their compatriots and envisions political structures beyond the “fortress” nation-state. Postmodernism questions the state’s claim to be a legitimate focus of human loyalties and its right to impose social and political boundaries. It supports cultural diversity and stresses the interests of minorities. Feminism argues that the realist theory exhibits a masculine bias and advocates the inclusion of woman and alternative values into public life.

Since critical theories and other alternative theoretical perspectives question the existing status quo, make knowledge dependent on power, and emphasize identity formation and social change, they are not traditional or non-positivist. They are sometimes called “reflectivist” or “post-positivist” (Weaver 165) and represent a radical departure from the neorealist and neoliberal “rationalist” or “positivist” international relation theories. For critical security theorists, security is not an objective phenomenon. It is essentially social, socially constructed and serves a political agenda. It legitimizes and imposes a political program on society that serves the dominant group. According to the critical securitization theory, the securitizing actor, who could be a politician or the governing party, “encodes a subject or a group as an existential threat to the reference object” (Ari 147). The object could be a state or a non-state group. Such a discursive practice defines threat and danger.

Constructivists, such as Alexander Wendt, try to build a bridge between these two approaches, positivist and post-positivist, by on the one hand, taking the present state system and anarchy seriously, and on the other hand, by focusing on the formation of identities and interests. Countering neorealist ideas, Wendt argues that self-help does not follow logically or casually from the principle of anarchy. It is socially constructed. Wendt’s idea that states’ identities and interests are socially constructed has earned his position the label “constructivism”. Consequently, in his view,“self-help and power politics are institutions, and not essential features of anarchy. Anarchy is what states make of it” (Wendt 1987 395). There is no single logic of anarchy but rather several, depending on the roles with which states identify themselves and each other. Power and interests are constituted by ideas and norms. Wendt claims that neorealism cannot account for change in world politics, but his norm-based constructivism can.

A similar conclusion, although derived in a traditional way, comes from the non-positivist theorists of the English school (International Society approach) who emphasize both systemic and normative constraints on the behavior of states. Referring to the classical view of the human being as an individual that is basically social and rational, capable of cooperating and learning from past experiences, these theorists emphasize that states, like individuals, have legitimate interests that others can recognize and respect, and that they can recognize the general advantages of observing a principle of reciprocity in their mutual relations (Jackson and Sørensen 167). Therefore, states can bind themselves to other states by treaties and develop some common values with other states. Hence, the structure of the international system is not unchangeable as the neorealists claim. It is not a permanent Hobbesian anarchy, permeated by the danger of war. An anarchic international system based on pure power relations among actors can evolve into a more cooperative and peaceful international society, in which state behavior is shaped by commonly shared values and norms. A practical expression of international society are international organizations that uphold the rule of law in international relations, especially the UN.

An unintended and unfortunate consequence of the debate about neorealism is that neorealism and a large part of its critique (with the notable exception of the English School) has been expressed in abstract scientific and philosophical terms. This has made the theory of international politics almost inaccessible to a layperson and has divided the discipline of international relations into incompatible parts. Whereas classical realism was a theory aimed at supporting diplomatic practice and providing a guide to be followed by those seeking to understand and deal with potential threats, today’s theories, concerned with various grand pictures and projects, are ill-suited to perform this task. This is perhaps the main reason why there has been a renewed interest in classical realism, and particularly in the ideas of Morgenthau. Rather than being seen as an obsolete form of pre-scientific realist thought, superseded by neorealist theory, his thinking is now considered to be more complex and of greater contemporary relevance than was earlier recognized (Williams 2007, 1–9). It fits uneasily in the orthodox picture of realism he is usually associated with.

In recent years, scholars have questioned prevailing narratives about clear theoretical traditions in the discipline of international relations. Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes and other thinkers have become subject to re-examination as a means of challenging prevailing uses of their legacies in the discipline and exploring other lineages and orientations. Morgenthau has undergone a similar process of reinterpretation. A number of scholars (Hartmut Behr, Muriel Cozette, Amelia Heath, Sean Molloy) have endorsed the importance of his thought as a source of change for the standard interpretation of realism. Murielle Cozette stresses Morgenthau’s critical dimension of realism expressed in his commitment to “speak truth to power” and to “unmask power’s claims to truth and morality,” and in his tendency to assert different claims at different times (Cozette 10–12). She writes: “The protection of human life and freedom are given central importance by Morgenthau, and constitute a ‘transcendent standard of ethics’ which should always animate scientific enquiries” (19). This shows the flexibility of his classical realism and reveals his normative assumptions based on the promotion of universal moral values. While Morgenthau assumes that states are power-oriented actors, he at the same time acknowledges that international politics would be more pernicious than it actually is were it not for moral restraints and the work of international law(Behr and Heath 333).

Another avenue for the development of a realist theory of international relations is offered by Robert Gilpin’s seminal work War and Change in World Politics . If this work were to gain greater prominence in IR scholarship, instead of engaging in fruitless theoretical debates, we would be better prepared today “for rapid power shifts and geopolitical change ”(Wohlforth, 2011 505). We would be able to explain the causes of great wars and long periods of peace, and the creation and waning of international orders. Still another avenue is provided by the application of the new scientific discoveries to social sciences. The evidence for this is, for example, the recent work of Alexander Wendt, Quantum Mind and Social Science . A new realist approach to international politics could be based on the organic and holistic world view emerging from quantum theory, the idea of human evolution, and the growing awareness of the role of human beings in the evolutionary process (Korab-Karpowicz 2017).

Realism is thus more than a static, amoral theory, and cannot be accommodated solely within a positivist interpretation of international relations. It is a practical and evolving theory that depends on the actual historical and political conditions, and is ultimately judged by its ethical standards and by its relevance in making prudent political decisions (Morgenthau 1962). In place of the twentieth-century Cold War ideological rivalry, the main competition in the twenty-first-century is between the ideologies justifying the expansion of the US-dominated unipolar world and those supporting the reestablishment of a multipolar one (Müllerson 2017). Consequently, the growing tensions among superpowers have contributed to the revival of the idealist-realist debate and have caused a resurgence of interest in realism. John Mearsheimer is an important thinker in this respect, known for his pessimistic concept of offensive realism, which assumes that powerful states, such as the United States, would aim at the maximization of power and domination over others (Mearsheimer 2001). His late work, The Liberal Delusion (Mearsheimer 2019), in which he presents realist arguments against a liberal position, can already be considered a classic of the theory of international relations.

As the current revival of interest proves, realism is a theory for difficult times, when security becomes a real issue. This happens when countries face the danger of an armed conflict. In such situations, realism performs a useful cautionary role. It warns us against progressivism, moralism, legalism and other orientations that lose touch with the reality of self-interest and power. It is a necessary corrective to an overoptimistic liberal belief in international cooperation and change resulting from interdependence, as well as to a critical theory claim that our insecurity is merely a result of securitization.

Nevertheless, when it becomes a dogmatic enterprise, by focusing on conflict alone, realism fails to perform its proper function as a theory of international relations. By remaining stuck in a state-centric and excessively simplified “paradigm” such as neorealism and by denying the possibility of any progress in interstate relations, it turns into an ideology. Its emphasis on power politics and national interest can be misused to justify aggression. It has therefore to be supplanted by theories that take better account of the dramatically changing picture of global politics. To its merely negative, cautionary function, positive norms must be added. These norms extend from the rationality and prudence stressed by classical realists; through the vision of multilateralism, international law, and an international society emphasized by liberals and members of the English School; to the cosmopolitanism and global solidarity advocated by many of today’s writers.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Political Realism , entry the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Political Realism , entry in Wikipedia .
• Melian Dialogue , by Thucydides.
• The Prince , by Machiavelli.
• The Twenty Years’ Crisis (Chapter 4: The Harmony of Interests), by E.H. Carr.
• Principles of Realism , by H. Morgenthau.
• Peace and War , by Raymond Aron.
• Globalization and Governance , by Kenneth Waltz.

egoism | ethics: natural law tradition | game theory | Hobbes, Thomas: moral and political philosophy | justice: international distributive | liberalism | Machiavelli, Niccolò | sovereignty | war

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The Practice of Realism in International Relations

This is an excerpt from Realism in Practice: An Appraisal . An E-IR Edited Collection. Available worldwide in paperback on Amazon ( UK , USA , Ca , Ger , Fra ), in all good book stores, and via a free PDF download .

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Realism in International Relations can be considered as the discipline’s oldest theory, having its first advocate in Thucydides, who presented the idea that power trumps justice and morality in The Peloponnesian War . Among many others, Machiavelli and Hobbes, first, E.H. Carr and H. Morgenthau, then, offered to their readers provocative and eternal questions that still challenge our times (Boucher 1998, 47-170; Molloy 2006). In a way, realism (also with its more contemporary versions with Waltz and Mearsheimer) can be considered as one of the most enduring approaches in IR. One of the reasons for this is that ‘it sets itself up as a no-nonsense practical science of international politics’ (Sutch and Elias 2007, 42). In realism, all events in international politics make sense and can be explained through relatively clear and immediate principles. For these reasons, realism not only remains a cornerstone of International Relations theory (Gold and McGlinchey 2017, 46-49), but also a thriving approach in the broad fields of political studies and political theory (Bell 2017). Classical realism has shaped the way in which the relations between states over the centuries have been understood and still influences policymakers today. According to some observers, realism has determined the foreign policies of both Barack Obama (Pillar 2016) and Donald Trump (Cole 2017).

On the other hand, realism is often challenged by the changing circumstances of contemporary world politics. For example, the notion of timeless principles and human nature, which are ‘unaffected by the circumstances of time and place’ (Morgenthau 1985, 10-11), has often been considered as an abstraction, more useful to understand realism as a theory than world politics. Among many other possible issues with realism, recent events such as the rise of non-state actors and non-conventional confrontation between international agents, made the often state-centric realist view more and more fragile. Already in a 1995 article, Ethan Kapstein argued that realism in International Relations might be ‘deeply and perhaps fatally flawed’ yet ‘continues to define the discipline’ (1995, 751). Not long after, Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik also saw a dominant role of Realist voices, while at the same time perceiving realism ‘in trouble’ and ‘in need of reformulation’ (1999, 5, 54). Today, realism is again accused of being grounded on ‘astonishingly bold’ claims and ‘empirically unprovable’ tenets (Motyl 2015) and of being unable to explain the complex reality of world politics.

The purpose of this collection is not to solve this dilemma; it is not to establish whether realism should be considered as the bearer of eternal truths regarding world politics or whether it should be abandoned. This book takes instead a more limited and nuanced approach, by appraising the current relevance and validity of realism as an interpretative tool in contemporary International Relations. In this spirit, all chapters of the book are animated not only by a theoretical effort to define the conceptual aspects of realism, but also by the aim of finding whether the tradition still provides the necessary conceptual tools to practitioners and scholars of International Relations.

In the chapter that opens the volume Lebow and Rösch present some of the perennial ideas that have shaped the realist tradition in international thought. By challenging the common reading that sees profound differences among various schools of realism (structural, classical, neo-positivist, and more), Lebow and Rösch find some essential elements of realism. These are the ‘tragic vision of life’ and the controversial relation between ethics and power. However, Lebow and Rösch not only offer this important interpretation but also claim that, on this ground, realism can still enlighten our understanding of world politics, by offering critical insights on the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East.

In the second chapter, Beer and Hariman show the persistent relevance of realist thinking in International Relations with regard to the rise of ISIS. To this end, they take a different approach from that of Lebow and Rösch and present an updated version of realism: post-realism, which seeks to offer a much more accurate account of the immaterial and cultural aspects of international politics.

Several contributions try to assess whether realism still offers a valuable instrument for the understanding of the world after the end of the Cold War. Pashakhanlou (Chapter 3) evaluates the explanatory power of Waltz’s defensive realism and Mearsheimer’s offensive realism in the light of the challenges of the allegedly unipolar post-Cold War world. In this light, a series of chapters addresses the rise of China in the post-Cold War era. Lee (Chapter 4) identifies the main challenge to realism in the rise of China’s soft power and in the theoretical shortcomings of the conception of power as it is defined by various realist schools. Chapter 5 by Carsten Rauch examines the case of China by comparing the realist approach to Power Transition Theory. Dawood (Chapter 6) analytically examines the Chinese balancing role towards the USA, with particular regard to the problem of the South-China Sea and the building up of China’s naval power.

War has always been at the centre of realist theory. The activities of hackers during elections and the disruptions they caused against public services and governments (for example the attack against the NHS in Britain in May 2017) show the growing importance of this new important level of confrontation among states, which is examined in the contribution (Chapter 7) by Craig and Valeriano on cybersecurity.

In Chapter 8 Anders Wivel focuses on ‘peaceful change’ as an instrument of international politics in its relation to power. Despite being recognised by E.H. Carr as one of the fundamental problems in international morality and law (see below), realist thinking has rarely considered the problem. In Chapter 9, Simpson examines the issue of small states and neutrality, challenging the traditional realist interest in great powers. By offering an historical excursus from the Melian dialogue to the post-Cold War era, the author examines the place of neutrality in contemporary politics, shaped by the return of multipolar politics.

One of the characters of realist theory is to identify a tension between ideals, and normative frameworks, and political reality. In contemporary politics, the lingua franca that shapes our normative expectations towards political actors is set by human rights. McGlinchey and Murray examine the American policy in the Middle-East during the Carter presidency and show the continuous tension between systemic pressure and ideals, including human rights and disarmament (Chapter 10). On a more theoretical level, and in the light of the growing literature of the politics of international law, Casla challenges this traditional view and finds instead that traditional realism offers substantial arguments for the relevance of International Human Rights Law in world politics (Chapter 11). The conclusive contribution (Chapter 12) by Peterson identifies in the persistence of power politics the main reason of the continuing relevance of realism in international relations.

All the chapters included in this volume rise from an urgent practical need: that of understanding the changing landscape of contemporary international politics. The relative decline of American power, the ambivalent Russian return and the rise of China, as well as the threats posed by non-state actors and new forms of military might are the problem felt by scholars in international politics as well as by the educated public. Notwithstanding the many critiques that the chapters of this volume advance against classical realist thinkers, what emerges is that realism offers an incredibly multifaceted understanding of world politics and enlightens the increasing challenges of world politics.

Bell, Duncan. ed. 2008. Political Thought and International Relations. Variations on a Realist Theme. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bell, Duncan. 2017. “Political Realism and International Relations.” Philosophy Compass 12(2): 1-12.

Boucher, David. 1998. Political Theories of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cole, Phil. 2017. “Trumpism and the Future of International Politics: The Return of Realism.” E-International Relations ( http://www.e-ir.info/2017/01/29/trumpism-and-the-future-of-international-politics/ ) accessed 25/06/2017.

Gold, Dana and Stephen McGlinchey. 2017. “International Relations Theory.” International Relations . Edited by Stephen McGlinchey, 46-56. Bristol: E-International Relations.

Kapstein, Ethan B. 1995. “Is Realism Dead? The Domestic Source of International Politics.” International Organization 49 (4): 751-74.

Legro, Jeffrey W and  Andrew Moravcsik. 1999. “Is Anybody Still a Realist?” International Security 24(2): 5–55.

Molloy, Sean. 2006. The Hidden History of Realism. A Genealogy of Power Politics. London: Palgrave.

Morgenthau, Hans. 1985. Politics among Nations. The Pursuit of Power and Peace. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

Motyl, Alexander J. 2015. “The Surrealism of Realism: Misreading the War in Ukraine.” World Affairs ( http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/surrealism-realism-misreading-war-ukraine , accessed on 25/06/2017).

Pillar, Paul. 2016. “Obama the Realist.” National Interest ( http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/obama-the-realist-15479?page=show , accessed 25/06/2017).

Sutch, Peter and Juanita Elias. 2007. International Relations: The Basics . London: Routledge.

Further Reading on E-International Relations

• Introducing Realism in International Relations Theory
• The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and Realism in International Political Thought
• The Past, Present and Future of Realism
• Realism, Post-Realism and ISIS
• From Realism’s Disciplinary Dominance to a More Global IR
• A Contemporary Perspective on Realism

Davide Orsi (Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from Cardiff University, 2015) is an Editor-at-Large at E-International Relations. His first book Michael Oakeshott’s Political Philosophy of International Relations: Civil Association and International Society (Palgrave, 2016) explores the historical and normative dimension of international society by relating Oakeshott’s philosophy of civil association to English School theories of international relations. He has published work in journals including the Journal of International Political Theory , Collingwood and British Idealism Studies, the European Legacy, and the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

J. R. Avgustin (Ph.D. in International Relations from University of Ljubljana, 2016) is an Editor-at-Large at E-International Relations. He is an Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia, an independent research consultant for Nepal Matters for America and a World Debate Institute Fellow. His main research interests focus on the use of force in international relations, particularly when authorised by the UN Security Council ( www.unscramblethesc.org ). His publications include articles in Sociology of Diplomacy: Initial Reading and Acta Diplomatica .

Max Nurnus is a PhD student at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University and Deputy Articles Editor at E-International Relations.

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Article contents

Structural realism/offensive and defensive realism.

• Steven E. Lobell Steven E. Lobell Department of Political Science, University of Utah
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.304
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 22 December 2017

Structural realism, or neorealism, is a theory of international relations that says power is the most important factor in international relations. First outlined by Kenneth Waltz in his 1979 book Theory of International Politics , structural realism is subdivided into two factions: offensive realism and defensive realism. Structural realism holds that the nature of the international structure is defined by its ordering principle, anarchy, and by the distribution of capabilities (measured by the number of great powers within the international system). The anarchic ordering principle of the international structure is decentralized, meaning there is no formal central authority. On the one hand, offensive realism seeks power and influence to achieve security through domination and hegemony. On the other hand, defensive realism argues that the anarchical structure of the international system encourages states to maintain moderate and reserved policies to attain security. Defensive realism asserts that aggressive expansion as promoted by offensive realists upsets the tendency of states to conform to the balance of power theory, thereby decreasing the primary objective of the state, which they argue is ensuring its security. While defensive realism does not deny the reality of interstate conflict, nor that incentives for state expansion do exist, it contends that these incentives are sporadic rather than endemic. Defensive realism points towards “structural modifiers” such as the security dilemma and geography, and elite beliefs and perceptions to explain the outbreak of conflict.

• structural realism
• offensive realism
• defensive realism
• Theory of International Politics
• central authority
• reserved policies

Introduction

Kenneth N. Waltz ’s Theory of International Politics profoundly affected international relations theory. Structural realism as developed by Waltz argues that the anarchic system and the distribution of capabilities are powerful constraints and inducements which produce “sameness” in the behavior of states. For Waltz, international relations is anarchic and not hierarchical, populated by functionally similar units, and the structure of the international system or polarity varies based on the distribution of capabilities. The anarchic nature of the international system, and the assumptions that states “at a minimum, seek their own preservation” and are socialized to imitate each other, allows Waltz to explain recurring international patterns and outcomes such as balances of power, war proneness of different distributions of power, and recurrent alliance formation ( 1979 :118; for realist theories of foreign policy, see the literature on classical realism such as Gulick 1955 ; Wolfers 1962 ; Morgenthau 1963 ; Thucydides 1982 ; and neoclassical realism including Friedberg 1988 ; Snyder 1991 ; Wohlforth 1993 ; Christensen 1996 ; Elman 1996 ; Rose 1998 ; Schweller 2006 ; Rathbun 2008 ; Lobell et al. 2009 ). Waltz’s structural realism influenced many of the major debates in the field in the 1980s and 1990s including neoliberal institutionalism (Keohane 1984 ; Oye 1986 ; Baldwin 1993 ; Ruggie 1993 ); the agent–structure debate (Wendt 1987 ; Dessler 1989 ); the significance of non-state actors (Krasner 1983 ); and more recently, the new international hierarchy studies (Lake 2003 ; 2009 ; Hobson and Sharman 2005 ) and the degenerative research program controversy (Vasquez 1997 ; Legro and Moravcsik 1999 ). Criticism and dissatisfaction with Waltz’s structural realism (Ruggie 1983 ; Ashley 1986 ; Keohane 1986 ; Buzan et al. 1993 ) fueled the constructivist, cultural, ideational, and Innenpolitik research agendas (Wendt 1992 ; Goldstein and Keohane 1993 ; Rosecrance and Stein 1993 ; Katzenstein 1996 ; Adler and Barnett 1998 ; Guzzini 1998 ).

Derived from Waltz’s structural realism, structural realist theorists can be divided into two competing versions with competing assumptions and policy prescriptions: offensive realism and defensive realism (for reviews of this literature see Lynn-Jones and Miller 1995 ; Frankel 1996 ; Miller 1996 ; Brooks 1997 ; Taliaferro 2000/01 ; James 2002 ; Walt 2002 ; Schweller 2003 ; Nexon 2009 ; the terms “aggressive” and “defensive” realism originally appeared in Jack Snyder ’s Myths of Empire ). One distinction between these two versions of realism is the role of the anarchic international system and whether it encourages states to maximize their security or to maximize their power and influence. A second distinction is whether conquest and expansion pay, and more generally, the cause of pathological state behavior including overexpansion, selfencirclement, and overextension. A final distinction is whether states are primarily revisionist in their intentions, or at least assumed to be, or whether states are primarily motivated by security-seeking behavior.

For offensive realists security is scarce. The anarchic nature of the international system compels states to maximize their share of world power and to seek superiority, rather than equality, in order to make themselves more secure and thereby increase their odds of survival (Gilpin 1981 ; Liberman 1996 ; Schweller 1996 ; Labs 1997 ; Zakaria 1998 ; Mearsheimer 2001 ; Elman 2004 ). The ultimate goal of every major power is to become the hegemon. The rationale is that the more power and the stronger the state, the less likely it will be a target, since weaker powers will be dissuaded from challenging it. John Mearsheimer is clear that “states quickly understand that the best way to ensure their survival is to be the most powerful state in the system” ( 2001 :33). Uncertainty about intentions of other states combined with the anarchical nature of the international system compels great powers to adopt competitive, offensive, and expansionist policies whenever the benefits exceed the costs. Specifically, since intentions are never clear and a state might become more aggressive in the future, all of the major powers adopt a worst-case scenario and therefore increase their power through expansion which leads to high levels of competition. Moreover, for offensive realists, offensive actions often succeed and conquest often pays.

For defensive or positional realists ( Joseph Grieco coined the term “defensive positionalists” in Cooperation Among Nations ), security is plentiful. Major powers seek to maximize their security by preserving the existing balance of power through mostly defensive strategies (Jervis 1978 ; Waltz 1979 ; Posen 1984 ; Walt 1987 ; Grieco 1990 ; Snyder 1991 ; Glaser 1994/5 ; Layne 1997 ; Van Evera 1999 ). Defensive realists maintain that the international system encourages states to pursue moderate and restrained behavior to ensure their survival and safety, and provides incentives for expansion in only a few select instances. The rationale is that aggression, competition, and expansion to maximize power through primacy and preponderance are unproductive because they will provoke the security dilemma and counterbalancing behavior, and thereby thwart the state’s effort to increase its security. As Christopher Layne concisely notes, “states balance against hegemons” ( 1993 :87). For defensive realists, since the international system rarely provides incentives for expansion, “structural modifiers,” including the offense–defense military balance and geography, and domestic and unit-level pathologies such as elite beliefs, perceptions, and logrolled imperial coalitions, explain overexpansion, underbalancing, self-encirclement, and overextension (Taliaferro 2000/01 ).

These two competing versions of realism raise several questions: What is the implication of anarchy and does the anarchical structure of the international system encourage states to maximize power or to maximize security? Is security in the international system scarce or plentiful? Does the international system encourage states to engage in offshore balancing, selective engagement, or primacy (Layne 1993 ; Posen and Ross 1996/97 ; Art 2003 ; Posen 2003 ; Walt 2005 ; Brooks and Wohlforth 2008 )? Does the international system encourage all great powers to act aggressively toward each other, even status quo states? How much power do states want and how much security do they require? Do conquest and territorial expansion pay or are they counterproductive? And how do offensive and defensive realists explain cases of self-defeating outcomes such as overextension, self-encirclement, and overstretch?

Offensive Realism and Maximizing Power

Classical realists (such as Thucydides , E.H. Carr , Arnold Wolfers , and Hans Morgenthau ) and offensive realists share the assumption that states seek to maximize power – that states are relentless seekers of power and influence. Specifically, for classical realists “nations expand their political interests abroad when their relative power increases” (Zakaria 1998 :19). Thucydides’ assertion in “The Melian Dialogue” is that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” For Morgenthau and other classical realists, the cause of conflict, aggression, expansion, and wars is human lust for power and hence states are hardwired to behave aggressively toward one another. The import is a never-ending struggle among states due to the natural human urge to dominate others.

For offensive structural realists, the anarchic international system and the distribution of power, and not human nature, is the invisible hand that “shapes and shoves” all great powers to maximize power and influence despite domestic or unit-level differences. The international system creates powerful incentives for states to look for opportunities to gain power and influence at the expense of rival states. As Robert Gilpin argues, “as the power of a state increases, it seeks to extend its territorial control, its political influence, and/or its domination of the international economy” ( 1981 :106).

For offensive realists, states maximize power, influence, and wealth (which is the foundation for military power) to become more secure in a world of anarchy; the best way for a state to increase its odds of survival is to become the most powerful state. Simply, a state with more power is more secure than a state with less power. For offensive realists, it is the structure of the anarchic international system that strongly encourages states in their unrelenting pursuit to maximize power with the ultimate goal of becoming a global hegemon, though for Mearsheimer, in contrast to Gilpin, only regional hegemons, such as the US, are possible due to geographical constraints such as the stopping power of water (for a critique of Mearsheimer’s version of offensive realism, see Snyder 2002 ; Lemke 2004 ).

For offensive realists, expansion entails aggressive foreign economic, political, and military policies to alter the balance of power; to take advantage of opportunities to gain more power; to gain power at the expense of other states; and to weaken potential challengers through preventive wars or “delaying tactics” to slow their ascent (Organski 1968 ). As Mearsheimer tells us, only a misguided state would believe that it has an “appropriate amount” of power and pass up opportunities to be the regional hegemon in the system. For if a state does not try to maximize its influence and selects to forgo an opportunity to expand, other powers will take advantage of the opportunity (Zakaria 1998 ). Thus, a major power does not strive to be an equal among its great-power peers but to be the most powerful – the hegemon. The goal of states is to maximize power and states will always compete with each other for power.

In contrast to Gilpin and other hegemonic offensive realists, for Mearsheimer, geography, and especially the stopping power of water, means that it is impossible for any state to achieve global hegemony. The best a major power can achieve is to become a regional hegemon, that is, the only great power in its part of the globe, and possibly control another region that is nearby and accessible over land. States that achieve regional hegemony seek to prevent great powers in other regions from repeating their accomplishment – they check aspiring or potential hegemons in other locales because they fear that a rival great power that dominates its own region will be an especially powerful foe that can cause trouble in the fearful great power’s locale. Regional hegemons prefer that there be at least two great powers located in other regions in order to check each other’s power.

Fareed Zakaria ’s theory of state-centered realism presents a slight twist to the offensive realist argument. He argues that statesmen will expand when they can increase state power and not national power – “nations try to expand their political interests abroad when central decision makers perceive a relative increase in state power” ( 1998 :42). Thus, expansion will allow statesmen to increase the amount of national power they can extract and mobilize.

Status Quo Powers are Rare

For offensive realists, status quo states in the international system are rare and limited to global hegemons. Major powers are rarely satisfied with the current or existing distribution of power. The rationale is that states are never certain of another state’s intentions – whether it can correctly assess its economic and military power, and whether it will use its offensive capabilities in the future to increase its relative power. Specifically, it is difficult for a state to assess how much relative power it must have over its rivals before it is secure and it is difficult to determine how much is enough in the future. Even in the absence of a specific or imminent threat, offensive realists argue that states will maximize power and influence because states cannot be sure when or where the next threat will emerge (Labs 1997 ). Uncertainty about intentions and fear of miscalculation mean that states always adopt and always prepare for the worst-case scenario when assessing other powers (one of Mearsheimer’s five “bedrock” assumptions about the international system is that all states possess at least some offensive capability). The import is that states always regard each other with fear, mistrust, and suspicion, and moreover, all states think the same way about each other. The result is a constant security competition, even among states that have no reason to compete, and hence the title of Mearsheimer’s book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics .

For most offensive realists, all major powers have revisionist intentions. Schweller’s balance-of-interests theory, which some (i.e., Frankel 1996 ; Elman, 1998 ; Jervis 1999 ; and Taliaferro 2000/01 ) have classified as a variant of offensive realism, divides states into status quo and revisionist powers. In contrast to the findings of defensive realists, he argues that revisionist states often bandwagon with the stronger power rather than balance against power (known as jackal bandwagoning). As discussed above, revisionist powers also initiate wars of conquest to add to their power and prestige (Lynn-Jones and Miller 1995 :ix–xxi). Status quo states are generally satisfied with what they have and so they tend to balance against threats and seek security. For Schweller, what matters is the aggregate balance between the revisionist and status quo powers, or the balance of interests, which affects the stability and war-proneness of the system.

Conquest Pays

Defensive realists assert that the structure of the international system rarely encourages states to expand in order to increase their security, that conquest is rarely profitable, and that aggression provokes counterbalancing behavior which results in self-encirclement, overextension, and strategic exposure. For defensive realists, this self-defeating behavior is not attributed to systemic pressure but to domestic and unit-level variables. Thus, they find that states are often more secure by maintaining the status quo.

For offensive realists, systemic imperatives push states to expand. Expansion and conquest often make states more secure, can pay huge dividends, and block other states from acquiring additional power. For Gilpin, Mearsheimer, and Zakaria, the quest for greater security encourages states to engage in territorial, political, military, and economic expansion. According to Jack Snyder ( 1991 :21–6), offensive realism stipulates at least four systemic conditions that can promote expansion: (a) when military technology favors the attacker; (b) when states can make significant cumulative additions to their power resources; (c) when relative power is expected to decline and thereby encourages preventive war; (d) when the distribution of power is multipolar, which allows states to defeat opponents piecemeal, and contributes to miscalculations and uncertainty about the actual distribution of relative power.

Offensive realists maintain that conquest is profitable. Mearsheimer claims that states that initiate aggression win the wars 60 percent of the time (“between 1815 and 1980 there were 63 wars and the aggressor won 39 times”; 2001 :149). According to Peter Liberman ( 1996 ), industrial resources are “cumulative” and can be added readily to existing capability; coercive and repressive subjugators can compel vanquished states to pay a large share of their economic surplus in tax and tribute; modernization vastly increases the economic wealth produced; the richer the country the more that can be taken from it so societal opposition will have to be very costly to make conquest unprofitable; modernization increases the efficiency of foreign coercion because it centralizes control, facilitates the quick deployment of this power over wide regions, and gives hostage societies more to lose from opposition; and relatively low-cost investment in repression prevents most people in modern societies from participating in the collective good of resistance.

For offensive realists, although states are relentless expanders, they are not mindless expanders. States are prudent territorial expanders, especially given the real risk of undermining economic and industrial power, which is the basis for military power. States may forgo opportunities to increase their power because the costs are too high, due to diminishing returns from additional military resources, because it might undermine the economy, or building additional military forces will provoke a rival who can match the increase. Even states with abundant wealth such as the US and UK have selected not to build militaries to conquer Europe or Asia. In response to imperial overstretch arguments (Kennedy 1987 ), Mearsheimer argues that “little scholarly evidence supports the claim that high levels of defense spending necessarily hurt a great power economy” ( 2001 :149).

For Gilpin ( 1981 ), who also argues that major powers are not mindless expanders, a major state will seek to change the international system as long as the expected benefits exceed the expected costs. Furthermore, the state will engage in territorial, political, and economic expansion until the marginal costs of greater expansion equal the marginal benefits. Finally, no state will seek to change the system when it is not profitable.

In response to defensive realists and borrowing from Kenneth Waltz ’s arguments about the restraining effect of socialization and learning on state behavior, Eric Labs argues that successful expanders learn from past or previous mistakes. States learn to go about expanding in a manner that draws the least amount of attention from the other major powers ( 1997 :13). Offensive realists acknowledge that states can miscalculate, especially in multipolar distributions where uncertainty about relative power and buck-passing behavior prevail. Moreover, states rarely have complete information about any situation they confront, let alone about the intentions and motivations of rival powers. Yet, even when the outcome fails and the consequence is self-encirclement or overstretch, Mearsheimer asserts that in many cases “a careful analysis shows that these choices for war were a reasonable response to the particular circumstances each state faced” ( 2001 :211). For instance, he maintains that both Nazi Germany and Japan during the 1930s took “a calculated risk” that was unsuccessful ( 2001 :215).

The Most Dangerous Distribution of Power

The distribution of power among the states in the international system also affects the level of fear. Structural realists differentiate between bipolar (two major powers) and multipolar (more than two major powers) distributions of capabilities. Mearsheimer further distinguishes between balanced multipolar and unbalanced multipolar distributions of power. Most offensive and defensive realists (other than hegemonic realists) agree that bipolar systems are more stable and less war prone than multipolar systems, and both are more stable than a unipolar system, though Karl Deutsch and David Singer ( 1964 ) counter that multipolar systems are more stable. Offensive and defensive realists disagree on whether multipolar systems, and especially unbalanced multipolar systems (the most unstable distribution), compel a potential regional hegemon to expand to become a regional hegemon or encourage a major power to act with restraint to prevent counterbalancing behavior.

For Mearsheimer the configuration of power that generates the most fear and the greatest security competition among states is a multipolar system that contains a potential hegemon or what he calls an unbalanced multipolar system (several great powers and a potential regional hegemon). As discussed below, geographic factors such as contiguity further heighten the fears of expansion. Pressure to expand is great for a potential regional hegemon because it strives to become a regional hegemon in order to increase its odds of survival, and because of its relative power, it has a good chance of dominating and controlling the other great powers in the region. Pressure to expand is further exacerbated in regions with continental powers that have large land armies – since for Mearsheimer these are the states that have initiated most of the wars of conquest. Thus, a potential regional hegemon will behave more aggressively than a major power facing other major powers in the same locale.

For Mearsheimer, regional hegemons block peer competitors in other regions from achieving regional hegemony. As mentioned above, the rationale is that a peer regional hegemon in another locale might support a rival or cause problems in other locales. Therefore, an extra-regional hegemon will assist other powers in the region to ensure that there are always at least two great powers in the locale.

In balanced multipolar systems, security competition is also high, but less so than in unbalanced multipolar systems. For Mearsheimer, buck-passing is more common in a balanced multipolar system, and even more so, if there are geographic barriers (while balancing is more prevalent in unbalanced multipolar systems and among contiguous states). Where buck-passing rather than balancing is more prevalent, expanders will face less opposition and greater opportunities to expand while the other major powers are engaged in passing the buck and debating who will bear the burden of balancing the aggressor.

A bipolar system is the most stable system and produces the least amount of fear among the great powers (Dale Copeland asserts the opposite; 1996 ; 2000 ). In this system, there is usually a rough balance between the major states in the system. Buck-passing cannot occur, and bipolarity discourages miscalculations and is more efficient since balancing occurs through internal mobilization (rather than counterbalancing alliances which can be slow to form).

Geography also contributes to the level of threat. Mearsheimer (like defensive realists who include “structural modifiers” in their arguments, see below) includes the role of geography by differentiating between continental and insular great powers. For Mearsheimer, insular states like the UK and the US are less vulnerable to invasion than continental states. Given the stopping power of water, which makes it difficult for states to project their power over long distances, insular states are more secure and less vulnerable to conquest than continental states. Continental great powers including France, Germany, and Russia/USSR are more likely to make bids for regional hegemony and more likely to face balancing coalitions than geographically distant or insular great powers.

Balancing versus Buck-Passing

For offensive and defensive realists, the choice of balancing and buck-passing against an aggressor is a function of the structure of the international system. A threatened great power in a bipolar system must balance against a rival because there is no other great power to “catch the buck.” A distant hegemon can safely stay out of any conflict in such regions because no state is powerful enough to conquer all of the states.

In multipolar systems states often buck-pass; states prefer to buck-pass rather than balance when confronted by a dangerous opponent. Buck-passing is most widespread when there is no potential hegemon to contend with and the threatened states do not share a common border. The more relative power the potential hegemon controls, the more likely it is that all of the threatened states in the system will forgo buck-passing and form a counterbalancing coalition. Also, for defensive realists, buck-passing becomes more likely among great powers in a multipolar system when the offense–defense balance favors the defense. Under this circumstance, more insulated or geographically distant great powers will tend to overestimate the ability of their frontline allies to withstand an initial attack, which in turn makes buck-passing a more attractive strategy for the former than balancing (Christensen 1997 ).

For Waltz and Mearsheimer external balancing is often slow and inefficient. If the regional great powers cannot contain the threat, the distant hegemon will balance against it. Thus, regional hegemons act as offshore balancers in other areas of the world and prefer to be “the balancer of the last resort.” Geography also helps identify the likely buck-passers and buck-catchers in multipolar systems: common borders promote balancing while barriers and buffers encourage buck-passing.

For Walt and other defensive realists, great powers rarely bandwagon. Only weak states with no great-power patron adopt such a risky strategy since there is no guarantee that the aggressor state will be satisfied rather than turning on and attacking the bandwagoners in the future (Ayoob 1989 ; David 1991 ). For defensive realists it is much safer to balance against rather than bandwagon with power or a threat. Schweller challenges the assumption that balancing behavior predominates among great powers. For Schweller, this assumption reflects what he calls the “status quo bias” which is prevalent among defensive realist arguments. Specifically, the bias assumes that “states are willing to pay high costs and take great risks to protect the values they possess, but will only pay a small price and take low risks to improve their position in the system” ( 1994 :85). Only for satisfied countries can it be said that the primary goal is “to maintain their position in the system” ( 1994 :86). Revisionist states want to increase their power and to improve their position in the international system. Calling for a “new order,” he argues that dissatisfied states are attracted to expanding revisionist powers. As already discussed, Schweller contends that jackal bandwagoning occurs when a powerful revisionist state or a coalition attracts opportunistic revisionist powers. The goal of such states is profit.

Differences among Offensive Realists

Offensive realists disagree on a number of important points. One debate is which distribution of power is most dangerous and exerts the greatest pressure for aggression, expansion, and conquest. For Mearsheimer, bipolar systems are the most stable and unbalanced multipolar systems are the least stable, the stopping power of water makes it impossible for a single state to become a global hegemon (hence there is no discussion of unipolar or hegemonic distributions), regional hegemons are defined by land armies, and oceans make it difficult for land powers to project their armed power over long distances necessary to create global hegemony.

For Gilpin and other hegemonic realists (Organski 1968 ; Modelski 1987 ; Thompson 1988 ), hegemonic systems where power is concentrated are the most stable distribution of power while systems approaching parity or where power is deconcentrated provoke expansion, conquest, and hegemonic war. For Gilpin, a global hegemon, which has historically been a naval power including the Netherlands, the UK, and the US, establishes and enforces the basic rules and rights that influence their own behavior and that of the lesser states in the system. Specifically, he claims that “the dominant economic (and military) powers in the modern era assumed the responsibility of organizing and defending the world market economy; they promoted free trade, provided investment capital, and supplied the international currency. In effect, they provided the public goods necessary for the functioning of efficient world markets because it was profitable for them to do so” ( 1981 :139). Moreover, Gilpin recognizes that although control over an international system provides economic benefits to the dominant power or powers, domination also involves costs in manpower and material resources – what Paul Kennedy termed “imperial overstretch” ( 1987 ). The protection and related costs are not productive investments but instead constitute an economic drain on the economy of the dominant state. In time, there will be diminishing returns and increasing costs, which will eventually make it profitable for a potential hegemon to challenge the erstwhile hegemon for leadership over the international system.

Defensive Realism

The anarchical nature of the international system leads to different outcomes for offensive and defensive realist theorists. Offensive realists argue that anarchy compels states to maximize influence, to compete for power in a never-ending struggle for hegemony, and to engage in territorial expansion. For defensive realists, anarchy encourages states to adopt defensive, moderate, and restrained strategies (Jervis 1979 ; Van Evera 1984 ; 1999 ; Gaddis 1987 ; Walt 1987 ; Snyder 1991 ; Glaser 1994/5 ; Lynn-Jones 1995 ; Taliaferro 2000/01 ). For defensive realists, conflict is sometimes necessary such as in the case of aggressor states, when their security is threatened, when they are insecure, or when differences are irreconcilable (for a critique of defensive realism, see Vasquez 1997 ; Zakaria 1998 ; Legro and Moravcsik 1999 ; Mearsheimer 2001 ). Moreover, it is sometime difficult for satisfied states to identify each other (Jervis 1999 ). In general, defensive realists maintain that states seek to maximize security, preserve the existing distribution of power, are not inherently aggressive, and avoid relative losses due to shifts in their relative position and ranking (Grieco 1990 ). Kenneth Waltz argues that “In anarchy, security is the highest end. Only if survival is assured can states safely seek such other goals as tranquility, profit, and power” ( 1979 :126). However, responding to realists who contend that states seek to maximize power and influence, he is clear that “the first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their positions in the system” ( 1979 :126).

For defensive realists there are four dangers from aggression, expansion, and conquest: First, attempts to achieve hegemony are self-defeating and can leave the state weaker and less secure because it provokes counterbalancing behavior and aggression tends to meet resistance. Defensive realists largely build on Waltz’s neorealist balance-of-power theory. Specifically, defensive realists begin with the supposition that balances of power recurrently form in the international system and that periods of sustained hegemony are not durable or stable. As Stephen Walt notes, “If balancing is more common than bandwagoning, then states are more secure because aggressors will face combined opposition. Status quo states should therefore avoid provoking countervailing coalitions by eschewing threatening foreign and defense policies” ( 1985 :4). Moreover, for Walt, in addition to aggregate power, both offensive capability and offensive intentions will provoke counterbalancing behavior (“states with large offensive capabilities are more likely to provoke an alliance” and “states that appear aggressive are likely to provoke others to balance”; 1985 :11–12). Thus, as Snyder reminds us, “the balance of power that arises out of international anarchy punishes aggressors, it does not reward it” ( 1991 :11).

Second, conquest rarely pays. The cost of expansion usually exceeds the benefits and therefore expansion is often explained by non-systemic forces or domestic and unit-level pathologies. Third, the offense–defense military balance often favors defenders and the defense over the offensive. Finally, socialization and lessons from history teach states that expansion and the pursuit of hegemony are often misguided because they provoke counterbalancing rather than bandwagoning behavior.

One additional point is that in contrast to the assumption of offensive realism, states, and especially major powers (rather than small states), are fairly secure and much more so than any single individual (Bull 1977 ). As Robert Jervis notes, “one of the main reasons why international life is not more nasty, brutish, and short is that states are not as vulnerable as men are in a state of nature” ( 1978 :172). While individuals can cease to exist fairly easily the same is not true for great powers. The consequence, as Jervis tells us, is that states that can afford to be cheated or that cannot be destroyed in a surprise attack can more easily trust others, can afford to wait for unambiguous signs of aggression, and do not need to engage in unbridled expansion for security ( 1978 :172).

In sum, for defensive realists conquest is generally costly and the international system usually encourages moderation, the international system rarely encourages expansion and only under specific circumstances, domestic and unit-level pathologies often contribute to self-defeating behavior such as overextension and self-encirclement, and cooperation is possible among states and it is possible for status quo powers to signal their intentions to each other (though as Jervis notes there is the danger of misidentifying expansionist states as security-seekers). Finally, for Grieco and Waltz, concerns about relative gains (not “will both of us gain?” but “who will gain more?”), the fear of dependency and vulnerability, and cheating are the main barriers to cooperation among states. Offensive realists, as discussed above, contend that defensive realists exaggerate the restraint of the international system on the major states.

Conquest Rarely Pays

For defensive realists, conquest rarely pays. The reasons are manifold: aggression and military buildup will provoke counterbalancing alliances (Layne 2006b ); modern nationalism makes conquest costly because it “spurs the defenders to fight harder” (Jervis 1978 :195), makes it hard to subdue and manipulate people in defeated states, and repression will provoke massive popular resistance; modern information economies are difficult to subjugate, especially those that are built around information technologies and depend on openness and freedom of movement and transaction to function smoothly. Moreover, skilled labor may be more difficult to exploit. In addition, the nuclear revolution and second strike capability make it difficult for states to fight each other (Jervis 1990 ). Finally, control over politically hostile societies is expensive; the price of maintaining empire and especially the high levels of defense spending erode a great power’s economy; economic resistance and repression will reduce modern societies’ social surplus; and the gains from conquest are rarely additive (Kaysen 1990 ; Van Evera 1999 ). Thus, it is difficult to exploit conquered territories. Offensive realists counter by arguing that the gains from conquest are greater and the barriers to the formation of counterbalancing alliances, especially in (balanced) multipolar distributions, are higher than defensive realists recognize.

Security Dilemma

The security dilemma is one tragedy of anarchy for defensive realists. Many of the means that a state uses to increase its security will lower the security of other states, even among security-seeking powers. For John Herz ( 1951 ) and Robert Jervis ( 1976 ), one state’s attempt to increase its own security due to the anarchic nature of the international system can inadvertently threaten other states and make them less secure and thereby provoke them to augment their power. As Jervis tells us, “many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others” ( 1978 :169) or “an increase in one state’s security decreases the security of others” ( 1978 :186). For defensive realists, motivated by security-seeking behavior, the outcome is an unintended hostility spiral among states that harbor no aggressive or revisionist intent. In fact, both states “would be satisfied with mutual security” (Jervis 1999 ). The end result is that the initiating state might undermine its security. As discussed below, “structural modifiers” such as geography and technology can ameliorate or exacerbate the security dilemma.

For Jervis and other defensive realists, there are several means to reduce the security dilemma: increasing the joint gains from cooperation; increasing the costs from non-cooperation; reducing the unilateral gains from the sucker’s payoff; and increasing the costs from mutual defection are among a few of the strategies ( 1978 ; 1985 ). Charles Glaser ’s contingent realism adds to the discussion by arguing that under many conditions, rivals can achieve a higher level of security through coordination and cooperation rather than arms competition, aggression, and territorial expansion. For instance, he maintains that “when the risks of competition exceed the risks of cooperation, states should direct their self-help efforts toward achieving cooperation” ( 1994 /5:60).

Status Quo States

For offensive realists, all states harbor revisionist intentions with hegemony as their ultimate goal. For defensive realists, it is possible for states that are satisfied with the status quo to signal their benign intent to each other and to identify each other. For Glaser, states that limit offensive capabilities through arms control, unilateral defense, and unilateral restraint, especially when the offense has the advantage, can communicate their benign intentions and motives to other states – that they are security-seeking states. Concomitantly, this can increase their security by preventing the security dilemma, hostility spirals, and arms races. Consenting to limit offensive capabilities when the defense has the advantage communicates less information about a state’s intentions and motives (Glaser 1994/5 :68–9).

Structural Modifiers: Offense–Defense Military Balance and Geography

Defensive realism makes a number of refinements to Kenneth Waltz ’s overly parsimonious structural theory of balance of power. For defensive realists, the international system itself is rarely sufficient to encourage states to seek to maximize power (Jervis 1999 ). Therefore, defensive realists emphasize the influence of the “fine-grained structure of power” or “structural modifiers” such as geography and technology and other factors (military doctrine, national social structure, diplomatic arrangements) in addition to the distribution of aggregate capabilities or the “gross structure of power” to explain expansion, aggression, and war (Snyder 1996 :168–71; Van Evera 1999 :7–8; Taliaferro 2000/01 ).

According to Van Evera ( 1999 ), when technology makes conquest easier: states are less secure and less likely to cooperate or engage in diplomacy; states cannot increase security without threatening others; there are greater incentives for preemption and to strike first and for “opportunistic expansion”; and strategies of security through expansion should be widespread even for status quo powers who must behave like aggressors in order to defend themselves against aggressors (one definition of offensive and defensive advantage is “when we say that the offense has the advantage, we simply mean that it is easier to destroy the other’s army and take its territory than it is to defend one’s own. When the defense has the advantage, it is easier to project and to hold than it is to move forward, destroy, and take” (Jervis 1978 :187). For Glaser and Kaufmann the offense–defense balance is defined as “the ratio of the cost of the forces that the attacker requires to take territory to the cost of the defender’s forces”; 1998 :46). For defensive realists, such situations of offensive advantage are a rare occurrence, especially given the second strike capability of most nuclear powers. Experts on ground warfare usually claim that the defender almost always enjoys a net advantage. Moreover, defensive realists hold that offensive dominance is often more perceptual than reality based (Van Evera 1998 :6).

When technology makes conquest more difficult then the reverse holds (Van Evera 1999 ): states are more secure, have a more relaxed view, can wait for unambiguous signs of aggression (or until intentions and motives are clearer), can make themselves more secure without threatening other states, and status quo states can cooperate fairly easily and engage in diplomacy. For Jervis, defense dominance will “render international anarchy relatively unimportant” ( 1978 :187). Thus, for defensive realists, when the defense is dominant states have little incentive to engage in territorial expansion. Moreover, “when the defensive has the advantage, status-quo states can make themselves more secure without gravely endangering others” (Jervis 1978 :187)

One criticism of the offense–defense balance by offensive realists (and by others) is that it is often difficult to assess (Davis et al. 1998–99 ; Mearsheimer 2001 ). It is often unclear whether the offense or the defense has the advantage and whether it is possible to distinguish offensive from defensive strategies, whether a piece of military hardware is offensive or defensive often depends on the situation or is ambiguous, and under certain circumstances, even status quo powers will want offensive weapons (again, Mearsheimer assumes that all states have at least some offensive capabilities; Levy 1984 ; 1990/91 ; Lynn-Jones 1995 ; Glaser and Kaufmann 1998 ). For offensive realists, the consequence is that if there is any doubt about the offense–defense balance, states will assume a worst-case scenario and behave as though offensive strategies have the military advantage over defensive ones, thereby encouraging states to take advantage of windows of opportunity to expand, to aggregate power, and to block the rise of other states. As Walt notes, “If states cannot measure the offense–defense balance or distinguish between offensive and defensive capabilities, then security-seeking states cannot escape the security dilemma and cannot signal their peaceful intentions in a convincing manner” ( 2002 :206).

A second structural modifier for defensive realists is geography. Similar to Mearsheimer’s view, geography can make aggression easier or more difficult. In land warfare, natural buffers and barriers (oceans, mountains, large rivers, deserts), size of territory, and difficult terrain aid the defender against superior numbers. For Mearsheimer, the stopping power of water makes it difficult for states to project their power over long distances. Furthermore, the loss-of-power gradient or the logistical burden of projecting power over a long distance tends to reduce the relative fighting power of the attacker.

Geography and technology can also affect the intensity and character of alliances and balancing behavior (Christensen and Snyder 1990 ). Where geography and technology are believed to favor the defender (defensive borders, large size, and strategic depth all protect against surprise attack (Jervis 1978 ), balancing behavior should be slower, involve more buck-passing, and be less intense than if the offensive is believed to have the advantage (Christensen and Snyder 1990 ). States with geographical defensive advantages will react more slowly and less intensively than other states to increases in an adversary’s power and will more often stress defensive military strategies. Where geographic factors reward offensive military strategies, states will be drawn to such doctrines whether or not they have status quo policies, and balancing behavior should tend to be quick and robust. Buck-passing should also occur less often, as Mearsheimer reminds us.

Socialization

For Waltz and for defensive realists, socialization to the norms of the system and learning lessons from history are important deterrents to expansion and aggression. According to Benjamin Frankel, “states are socialized into the system by emulating the practices of the most successful states in the system” ( 1996 :xvii). As Walt notes, “if balancing is the norm and if states understand this tendency, aggression is discouraged because those who contemplate it will anticipate resistance” ( 1985 :13). Similarly, Layne states that “one of history’s few incontestable lessons is that the pursuit of hegemony invariably is self-defeating” ( 2006a :6). Balance-of-power theory itself suggests that expanding hegemons will be opposed and stopped, and these lessons have been repeatedly demonstrated – though as offensive realists counter, not all states learn the lesson. Defensive realists reply that enough learning takes place to make violent, excessive, and expansionist policies the exception rather than the rule.

Domestic Pathologies

For defensive realists, the international system provides few incentives for expansion, it is usually difficult, and rarely profitable. Defensive realists see ambitious attempts to expand as self-defeating anomalies and the product of non-systemic or domestic political pathologies. Leaders might inflate threats to mobilize domestic resources (Christensen 1996 ), perceptions of the balance of power can affect state behavior (Leffler 1992 ; Wohlforth 1993 ; Christensen 1997 ), and aversion to loss can lead to risky diplomatic and foreign military intervention (Taliaferro 2004 ). According to Aaron Friedberg , states find it difficult to assess relative power which often lags behind shifts in the real distribution of power. Instead of steady, robust, and efficient balancing behavior (either through internal military buildup or counterbalancing alliances), a state’s adjustment is likely to be irregular, jerky, and to occur in bursts. The consequence is that a “nation whose leadership does not realize that its power is declining relative to that of another country will probably not feel compelled to enter into productive alliances with third parties” ( 1988 :6).

According to Jack Snyder ( 1991 ), parochial groups (imperial and military interests) which disproportionately benefit from expansion but are too narrow to capture the state join with other pro-imperial interests to form a powerful logrolled coalition. Such logrolled coalitions have the greatest opportunity to control state policy where power is highly centralized – in cartelized political systems such as Germany and Japan in the 1930s (rather than democratic states such as Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and the US during the Cold War where power is more diffused). The consequence is not expansion, but what defensive realists term overexpansion, or, more expansion than any single parochial group desired since each group will get the policy or program of expansion that it most prefers. However, multiple expansions can result in strategic over-commitment and self-encirclement. In the long run even the pro-imperial parochial groups are harmed by the counterproductive expansion.

For Charles Kupchan ( 1994 ), strategic culture or deeply embedded conceptions and notions of national security take root among elites and the public. Strategic culture can place severe constraints on the ability of elites to undertake strategic adjustment. By selling powerful strategic images to the polity which mold public opinion and reshape the roles and missions of the broader decision-making community, elites unwittingly entrap themselves in a strategic culture. This later prevents them from reorienting grand strategy and avoiding self-defeating behavior. The outcome is strategic exposure, self-encirclement, and overextension. In each instance the state is left pursing policies that jeopardize its primary security interests.

For Randall Schweller ( 2006 ), underbalancing runs contrary to the core prediction of structural realism. Namely, threatened states will balance against dangerous aggregations of power by forming alliances or building arms. Underbalancing occurs when the state does not balance or does so inefficiently in response to a dangerous aggressor, and the state’s efforts are essential to deter or defeat it. For Schweller, under-reactions to dangerous shifts in relative power occur for two reasons: actors’ preferences which are more influenced by domestic rather than international concerns do not create incentives to adopt a balancing policy, or the potential domestic political risks and costs of balancing are deemed too high. Thus, domestic constraints can prevent states from balancing in a timely and systematic manner in response to dangerous changes in relative power.

Conclusion and Policy Implications

According to offensive realism, security in the international system is scarce. Systemic imperatives of anarchy compel the major great powers to maximize their security through maximizing their relative power by expansionist foreign policies, taking advantage of opportunities to gain more power, and weakening potential challengers. For offensive realists, a state’s ultimate goal is hegemony or primacy because it is the best way to increase its odds of survival and it can never be certain of the relative power or future intentions of the other major powers. One consequence is that cooperation and trust among states are low. How a state will go about expansion will vary and offensive realism does not predict the same security strategy for every state, nor are states mindless expanders. However, offensive realists are clear that expansion often pays and that states are locked in a perennial struggle for power (including prestige, security, influence, and material capabilities).

For defensive realists, behavior beyond a moderate, incremental foreign policy is often unnecessary and counterproductive. The international system encourages moderate behavior and enough power; anything else must be explained at some other level of analysis. Defensive realists regard overexpansion, self-encirclement, and overextension as pathological and the product of domestic and unit-level variables (general staffs, perceptions, loss aversion, myths, domestic coalitions and cartels). For defensive realists, aggression is rare because states balance against aggressors and the offense–defense balance usually favors the defense thereby making conquest more difficult. Thus, great powers are often satisfied with the existing balance of power, rarely seek to change it through military force, security is abundant rather than scarce, and states have little incentive to seek additional power.

Offensive and defensive realism present opposing policy prescriptions and advocate grand strategies of offshore balancing, selective engagement, or primacy (for an overview of strategies, see Posen and Ross 1996/97 ). For offensive realists such as Mearsheimer, regional hegemons should pursue primacy in their locale and seek to block any peer rivals in other regions. For the US, this means that it will remain the regional hegemon in the western hemisphere and will act as an offshore balancer in Europe and Asia, though Germany, Russia, and China could emerge as potential regional hegemons, shifting both regions to unbalanced multipolar – the most unstable and war-provoking distribution. For Brooks and Wohlforth ( 2008 ) the current unipolar distribution of power is both stable and durable (Mastanduno 1997 ; Kaufman et al. 2007 ). The authors call for “systemic activism” by the US to use its unique window of opportunity to reshape the international system to reflect its long-term security interests. This behavior is possible because the US does not face the traditional external or systemic constraints that previous major powers encountered in bipolar and multipolar distributions (including the threat of counterbalancing by secondary states).

Defensive realists argue that the US should pursue either selective engagement or offshore balancing grand strategies rather than primacy. For Chris Layne , the danger of America’s current pursuit of predominance or “extraregional hegemony” is that it will provoke the emergence of old states and new powers to counterbalance the US, it encourages terrorists to target the US, the US will become entangled in overseas commitments, and finally it contributes to imperial overstretch which will erode US predominance (2006a:7). American power has not yet provoked hard balancing (Ikenberry 2002 ) but in contrast to Brooks and Wohlforth’s assessment, a number of defensive realists argue that it has provoked soft balancing or “tacit balancing short of formal alliances” (Paul 2004 :3; for a critique of soft balancing, see Brooks and Wohlforth 2005 ). For Posen ( 2006 ), the concentration of American global power has led the European states, through the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), to move toward greater autonomy and to “cautiously” balance US power. For Robert Pape, American preponderance has led secondary states to “to engage in the early stages of balancing behavior against the United States” ( 2005 :9), for T.V. Paul, the result is to form diplomatic coalitions against the United States ( 2005 ), and for Layne ( 2006b ), the consequence has been leash-slipping by its allies.

One grand strategy for the US is selective engagement. According to Robert Art, “selective engagement is a strategy that aims to preserve America’s key alliances and its forward-based forces…it establishes priorities: it assures protection of America’s vital and highly important interests” ( 2003 :9). Selective engagement has been criticized because it has not been very selective, with US forces still engaged in places like Europe despite the disappearance of the Soviet Union (Walt 2005 ). An alternative grand strategy, according to Walt and Layne, is for the US to act as an offshore balancer, intervening in vital locales when there are threats to American interests. The advantage of this strategy for Walt is that “it husbands the power upon which U.S. primacy rests and minimizes the fear that U.S. power provokes” ( 2005 :223). One criticism of offshore balancing is that a less engaged US will “let the world become more dangerous and less prosperous” (Art 2003 :222).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jeffrey W. Taliaferro and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments.

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Applications of Neo-Classical Realism in Middle East: A Case study of Arab-Israel war 1967

From the beginning much has been said about the applications of some outstanding international relations theories in the international relationship among states. Be it Realism, in which it revolves around the power politics.

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This paper will assess the alleged relevance of the realist thinking in International Relations by answering the question whether Realism still dominates the theory and practice of International Relations. Examination of some core theoretical assumptions of Realism and assessment of the continuing significance of the realist thinking during the Cold War period and after will be undertaken with regard to both theory and practice. To answer the key research question whether Realism is still dominant, arguments against and in favour of the claim will be presented. Based on evidence, the line of argument establishes that although the realist depiction of International Relations, with its stress upon the distribution of power, provides an important departure and continuous insight, not to mention the ‘timeless wisdom’ into the understanding of the behaviour of states, it is not in itself definitive as Realism has some noticeable weaknesses. This paper begins from the premise that although Realism alone is insufficient for understanding of contemporary international relations, its insights remain necessary to that enterprise. The method adopted is Toulmin model of argument, which serves as a basis for structure and organization. The big idea is an elucidation on ‘an enlightened Realism’, which confirms the continuing validity of Realist principles throughout history. It is explained through a juxtaposition between statecraft by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Despite arguments questioning the relevance of the classical paradigm Realism is nowhere near becoming irrelevant in the practice of some states. Whereas the discipline has witnessed an astounding flourishing of numerous post-classical theories of International Relations. Despite emergence of such new theories, it is reasonable to suggest that Realism has not become obsolete. Undeniably, Realism produces numerous prolific critics, perhaps deservedly, because in its power political mode, it provides instrumental interpretation of the international system. Some would argue even, immoral examination of international politics, as opposed to a normative one, unlocked by the study of alternative International Relations theories, such as the English School, Constructivism, Feminism, Green theories or Global Environmentalism. It will be argued, however, that scholars of international politics cannot totally discard the Realist paradigm since security, rather than economic development, still remains the most important concern for many states in the developing world (although emancipation concerns are coming to the fore as well). Realism’s applicability and ability to explain the current international politics remains unparalleled. Although the world is changing (45% of the world is democratic), in certain fundamentals, it has not changed as much as many contemporary International Relations theorists believe. To a large extent, it remains characterised by anarchy, and its attendant logic of self-help and struggle for survival. The world is still decentralised, the key political actors are states which are competitive. This confirms Realist analyses of power politics with states compelled by their anarchic environment to act in a ‘functionally undifferentiated’ manner while using capability advantages to gain more influence over outcomes based on power accumulation, as timeless. In other words, Realism as one of not many theoretical paradigms remains relevant despite the passing of history, in other words, it aspires to explain events even beyond history as it is the longest tradition of thinking about international political reality. Thus, Realism remains essential to understanding states’ choices and actions. Consequently, despite the emergence of postpositivist approaches, it would be incorrect, some would argue even naïve, to state that Realism is not dominant. However pessimistically it may sound, based on data and evidence of states' practice Realism persists. Realism is far from being an exhaustive theory though, neither has it existed without evident limitations, nor has it remained universally applicable to all times and epochs (despite claims for it being beyond history, i.e. being relevant in all epochs), but its savage, simplistic variant is still evident in the world. Whether in brutal acts of war, acts of avenge, revanchism, competition and breaking of human rights, Realism is still unrivalled when it comes to the conduct of states in the non-democratic world. However, Realism's influence is not monolithic when it comes to theory. Realism persists in acts of states only when weak leaders sacrificing integrity and objectivity decide to allow so, for example, by not disarming an aggressor in time, or by turning a blind eye to unlawful military interventions, or by not being guided by ethics. Hard military power counts for more in the context of international politics than it does in democratic domestic politics. In international relations, conquest, or pure coercion, is not leadership, but mere dictation. In other words, 'offensive' Realism exists, as long as, weak leaders who are on top of states follow the realist precepts and its attendant logic of competition, rivalry, carnal revenge and retort to war. In so doing though dictators put whole societies as well as liberal order in danger. In contrast, strong leaders help groups create and achieve shared goals. Successful transformational leadership is about change. When strong leaders allow for the possibility of transformation of the structure towards security community, then the realist logic no longer holds true and is not accurate. Realism and neo-realism are unable to explain structural change in world order. In line with the evidence, although Realism is not definitive (i.e. even weak leaders have alternatives and societies have democracy to choose strong leaders), it is alive and well, and it looks like it is not likely to disappear anytime soon from both theory and practice of International Relations. Primitive, savage and brutal elements are unfortunately still visible in 21st century civilized world. What can IR scholars do to make Realism less dominant in both IR theory and practice of states? The relationship between theory and practice is that of mutual, dual causality. If Realism persists on top echelons of power, it persists also in the practice of states. To change this, scholars have to initiate a theoretical innovation among the top most powerful statesmen. Realism persists unless IR scholars are actively engaged in innovative refinement and eclectic creation of new theories which could then be, in turn, readily applied by strong, transformational leaders, i.e. leaders who believe in change and bring about real, multiple social change. In principle, good theories lead to good policies since policy problems inspire theoretical innovation. Theories inform policy although policy makers pay relatively little attention to the vast theoretical literature in International Relations. If this trend could be reversed, if more scholars would become more interested in doing policy-relevant work and if more policy makers started to listen to IR scholars, then this would enable more effective bridging of the gap between theory and policy. If it is accepted that the point of IR theory is to enable a convergence in which political theory meets practice. Then, such an analytic activity could be, thereby leading to a smoother and swifter transfer of new, well crafted, fine-tuned, and more innovative theories strengthening 'transmission belt' from theory to policy. This would be followed by implementation of effective, successful policies to enable peaceful change though within the system, in actual reality, leading to the innovative and technological transformation of the whole system. Perhaps, even civilizing the International Society in the way that some of the English School scholars have long time ago envisaged. Creative, original ideas exist, but they are rarely applied by policy makers and statesmen who often discard eco-movements, feminist, postmodernist, pospositivist theories. Thus, if scholars and academics produce useful knowledge, as for example with the theory of 'an enlightened Realism', such constructive ideas could be implemented into the practice of statecraft. When successful, research for policy’s sake could perform an enlightenment function of social sciences (this metaphor illustrates the role of a theory in understanding the world of IR - we can only shed light on what is known, and even then, we cannot be 100% certain about the activity of theorising, for what is unknown remains in the darkness) making the discipline more diverse and the world a better place. Reminding at the same time that each of the theories whether classical or post-classical, reveal only part of truth about contemporary international political reality, and thus, from this standpoint, none is sufficiently satisfactory.

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In the discipline of International Relations (IR), realism is a school of thought that emphasises the competitive and conflictual side of international relations. Realism’s roots are often said to be found in some of humankind’s earliest historical writings, particularly Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, which raged between 431 and 404 BCE. Thucydides, writing over two thousand years ago, was not a ‘realist’ because IR theory did not exist in named form until the twentieth century. However, when looking back from a contemporary vantage point, theorists detected many similarities in the thought patterns and behaviours of the ancient world and the modern world. They then drew on his writings, and that of others, to lend weight to the idea that there was a timeless theory spanning all recorded human history. That theory was named ‘realism’.

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International system, where states interact with each other. Relations between states calling international relations. Today there are almost 200 independent states, and multiple international organizations that are covered by international Relations. Millions of people are living in different independent states. These states around world forms global system. What kind of Relation exists between states in this global system, what laws govern them; different scholars from time to time have tried to explain it through different theories and all most every one of them are applicable at various space and time. States and countries never existed once but human developed it some time in history so it is human created system. Every state is independent, so its mutual benefits that bring them together or mutual enmities. Survival is ultimate goal of all states. Hegemon constitutes knowledge, and these theories started from hegemon of time that is United States of America soon after International relations was acceptedas academic subject. Some scholars suggest that its power politics that every state tries to achieve in international relations to be on upper hand and achieve maximum goals and remains dominant, other suggests that its mutual cooperation between states for economical reason. The Classical Realism is one of classical theory of international relations that can be felt today as well. It moves around power politics and survival. International system is defined as anarchy which is almost true because there is no world power that is their to enforce law its will of sovereign states to follow norms rules and regulation or not. States must struggle to survive and world is most in conflict over interest the powerful states interests are served well on priority. Realism is more closely to human behavior and that is behavior of selfishness that always produces conflicts.

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Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism

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Mohammed Ayoob, Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism, International Studies Review , Volume 4, Issue 3, December 2002, Pages 27–48, https://doi.org/10.1111/1521-9488.00263

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I argue that the dominant paradigms in IR fail to explain adequately two of the central issues in the international system: the origins of the majority of conflicts and the behavior of the majority of states. These paradigms fail because they formulate generalizations from data drawn from a restricted universe and because they lack historical depth. Both these flaws are related to inequality in the arena of the production of knowledge in IR, which in turn is a function of the inequality in material capabilities in the international system.

A supplementary, if not alternative, perspective is needed to correct this situation and fill this gap. We can fashion such a perspective by drawing upon classical realist thought, the historical sociology of state formation, and the normative perspicacity of the English School. Combining their insights and applying them to the analysis of Third World conflict patterns and the external and domestic behavior of Third World states is likely to provide more satisfactory explanations for the origins of the majority of contemporary conflicts.

Such an exercise will also shed light on the crucial variables that determine the behavior of the majority of states in the Third World. Moving postcolonial states into the mainstream of theorizing in IR will also help reduce the impact of inequality on the field and open new vistas for theoretically informed scholarly research. I also call for pluralism in international relations theorizing rather than a search for universally applicable law–like generalizations divorced from historical and social contexts.

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International Relations and Area Studies pp 35–53 Cite as

Africa in the Study of International Relations: The (Double) Realist Bias of Global IR

• Luca Raineri 4 &
• Edoardo Baldaro 5  
• First Online: 12 November 2023

145 Accesses

Part of the book series: Contributions to International Relations ((CIR))

The Global IR research agenda lays emphasis on the marginalised, non-Western forms of power and knowledge that underpin today’s international system. Focusing on Africa, this chapter questions two fundamental assumptions of this approach, arguing that they err by excess of realism—in two different ways. First, the claim that Africa is marginal to IR thinking holds true only as long as one makes the whole of IR discipline coincide with the Realist school. Second, the Global IR commitment to better appreciate “non-Western” contributions is ontologically realist, because it fails to recognise that the West and the non-West are dialectically constitutive of one another. To demonstrate this, the chapter first shows that Africa has moved from the periphery to the core of IR scholarship: in the post-paradigmatic phase, Africa is no longer a mere provider of deviant cases, but a laboratory for theory-building of general validity. In the second part, the Sahel provides a case for unsettling reified conceptions of Africa’s conceptual and geographical boundaries through the dialectical articulation of the inside/outside dichotomy. Questioning the “place” of Africa in IR—both as identity and function—thus paves the way to a “less realist” approach to Global IR.

The following chapter was partially published in the Special Issue of the Italian Political Science Review titled ‘Reaching for allies? The dialectics and overlaps between International Relations and Area Studies in the study of politics, security and conflicts’), with the title ‘The place of Africa in international relations: the centrality of the margins in Global IR’, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/italian-political-science-review-rivista-italiana-di-scienza-politica/article/abs/place-of-africa-in-international-relations-the-centrality-of-the-margins-in-global-ir/5B1F6E3DF0D65AB38A93CE30CFF2811D .

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By “Realism” with a capital R we refer to the realist school of thought of international relations, so as to distinguish it from “realism” with a small R, by which we refer here to the ontological stance characterising the world “out there” as objectively given and thought-independent.

We nevertheless acknowledge that other socially constructed partitions of/in Africa do exist, which have generated persisting socio-political effects on the continent: namely, the “exogenously” imposed distinction between a Francophone and an Anglophone Africa has greatly contributed to hampering the Pan-African project (Ackah, 2020 ) and undermining Africa’s “sameness”.

The term Sahel comes from the Arab word Sahīl —“shore”.

Abrahamsen, R. (2016a). Africa and international relations: Assembling Africa, studying the world. African Affairs, 116 (462), 125–139. https://doi-org.eres.qnl.qa/10.1093/afraf/adw071

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Raineri, L., Baldaro, E. (2023). Africa in the Study of International Relations: The (Double) Realist Bias of Global IR. In: D'Amato, S., Dian, M., Russo, A. (eds) International Relations and Area Studies. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39655-7_3

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