Introduction: the timeless wisdom of Realism

The story of Realism most often begins with a myth-ical tale of the idealist or utopian writers of the inter-war period (1919–39). Writing in the aftermath ofthe First World War, the ‘idealists’, a term that realistwriters have retrospectively imposed on the inter-war scholars, focused much of their attention onunderstanding the cause of war so as to find a rem-edy for its existence. Yet according to the realists, theinter-war scholars’ approach was flawed in a numberof respects. They, for example, ignored the role ofpower, overestimated the degree to which humanbeings were rational, mistakenly believed thatnation-states shared a set of common interests, andwere overly passionate in their belief in the capacityof humankind to overcome the scourge of war. Theoutbreak of the Second World War in 1939 con-firmed, for the realists at least, the inadequacies ofthe inter-war idealists’ approach to studying inter-national politics.

A new approach, one based on the timelessinsights of Realism, rose from the ashes of the dis-credited idealist approach.1 Histories of the academicfield of International Relations describe a GreatDebate that took place in the late 1930s and early1940s between the inter-war idealists and a new gen-eration of realist writers, which included E. H. Carr,Hans J. Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, FrederickSchuman, George Kennan, and others, who allemphasized the ubiquity of power and the competi-tive nature of politics among nations. The standardaccount of the Great Debate is that the realistsemerged victorious, and the rest of the InternationalRelations story is, in many respects, a footnote toRealism.2 It is important to note, however, that at itsinception, there was a need for Realism to defineitself against an alleged ‘idealist’ position. From 1939to the present, leading theorists and policymakershave continued to view the world through realistlenses. The prescriptions it offered were particularlywell suited to the United States’ rise to become theglobal hegemon (or leader). Realism taught Ameri-can leaders to focus on interests rather than ideol-ogy, to seek peace through strength, and to recog-nize that Great Powers can coexist even if they have

antithetical values and beliefs. The fact that Realismoffers something of a ‘manual’ for maximizing theinterests of the state in a hostile environmentexplains in part why it remains ‘the central traditionin the study of world politics’ (Keohane 1989a: 36).This also helps to explain why alternative perspec-tives (see Ch.12) must of necessity engage with, andattempt to go beyond, Realism.

The theory of Realism that became dominant afterthe Second World War is often claimed to rest on anolder, classical tradition of thought. The very idea ofthe timeless wisdom of Realism suggests that mod-ern versions of realism have a long history. Indeed,many contemporary realist writers often claim to bepart of an ancient tradition of thought that includessuch illustrious figures as Thucydides (c.460–406 bc),Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), Thomas Hobbes(1588–1679), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78).The insights that these realists offered on the way inwhich state leaders should conduct themselves inthe realm of international politics are often groupedunder the doctrine of raison d’état, or reason of state.Together, writers associated with raison d’état areseen as providing a set of maxims to leaders on howto conduct their foreign affairs so as to ensure thesecurity of the state. Many successful leaders of thenineteenth and twentieth centuries have claimed tofollow the timeless principles of classical realism.

According to the historian Friedrich Meinecke,‘Raison d’état is the fundamental principle of inter-national conduct, the State’s First Law of Motion. Ittells the statesman what he must do to preserve thehealth and strength of the State’ (Meinecke 1957: 1).Most importantly, the state, which is identified asthe key actor in international politics, must pursuepower, and it is the duty of the statesperson to calcu-late rationally the most appropriate steps that shouldbe taken so as to perpetuate the life of the state in ahostile and threatening environment. For realists ofall stripes, the survival of the state can never be guar-anteed, because the use of force culminating in war isa legitimate instrument of statecraft. As we will see,the assumption that the state is the principal actorcoupled with the view that the environment which

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states inhabit is a perilous place help to define theessential core of Realism. There is, however, one issuein particular that theorists associated with raisond’état, and classical realism more generally, wereconcerned with; that is, the role, if any, that moralsand ethics occupy in international politics.

Realists are sceptical of the idea that universalmoral principles exist and, therefore, warn stateleaders against sacrificing their own self-interests inorder to adhere to some indeterminate notion of‘ethical’ conduct. Moreover, realists argue that theneed for survival requires state leaders to distancethemselves from traditional morality which attachesa positive value to caution, piety, and the greatergood of humankind as a whole. Machiavelli arguedthat these principles were positively harmful ifadhered to by state leaders. It was imperative thatstate leaders learned a different kind of moralitywhich accorded not to traditional Christian virtuesbut to political necessity and prudence. Proponentsof raison d’état often speak of a dual moral stand-ard: one moral standard for individual citizens liv-ing inside the state and a different standard for thestate in its external relations with other states. Justi-fication for the two moral standards stems from thefact that the condition of international politics oftenmake it necessary for state leaders to act in a manner(for example, cheating, lying, killing) that would beentirely unacceptable for the individual. But beforewe reach the conclusion that Realism is completelyimmoral, it is important to add that proponents ofraison d’état argue that the state itself represents amoral force, for it is the existence of the state thatcreates the possibility for an ethical political com-munity to exist domestically. Preserving the life ofthe state and the ethical community it envelopsbecomes a moral duty of the statesperson. Thus it isnot the case that realists are unethical, rather theyfind that sometimes ‘it is kind to be cruel’.3

Although the advanced student might be able todetect some subtle differences, it is fair to say thatthere is a significant degree of continuity betweenolder realists and modern variants. Indeed, the threecore elements that we identify with Realism—statism, survival, and self-help—are present in thework of a classical realist such as Thucydides andstructural realists such as Kenneth Waltz. We arguethat these ‘three Ss’ constitute the corners of the

realist triangle. While we will expand on the mean-ing of these ‘three Ss’ later in the chapter, it isimportant to be clear at the outset what these termssignify.

Realism identifies the group as the fundamentalunit of political analysis. During earlier times, suchas when Thucydides and Machiavelli were writing,the basic unit was the polis or city-state, but since theTreaty of Westphalia (1648) realists consider the sov-ereign state as the principal actor in internationalpolitics. This is often referred to as the state-centricassumption of Realism. Statism is the term given tothe idea of the state as the legitimate representativeof the collective will of the people. The legitimacy ofthe state is what enables it to exercise authorityinternally as manifest, for example, in the makingand enforcement of law. Yet outside the boundariesof the state, realists argue that a condition ofanarchy exists. By anarchy what is most oftenmeant is that international politics takes place in anarena that has no overarching central authorityabove the individual collection of sovereign states.Thus rather than necessarily denoting completechaos and lawlessness, the concept of anarchy isused by realists to emphasize the point that theinternational realm is distinguished by the lack of acentral authority. As we will see, realists draw a var-iety of conclusions about the effect that anarchy hason shaping the basic character of internationalpolitics.

Following from this, realists draw a sharp distinc-tion between domestic and international politics.Thus while Hans J. Morgenthau argues that ‘inter-national politics, like all politics, is a struggle forpower’, he goes to great lengths to demonstrate thequalitatively different result this struggle has oninternational politics as compared to domestic polit-ics (Morgenthau [1948] 1955: 25). One major factorthat realists argue sets international politics apartfrom domestic politics is that while the latter is ableto constrain and channel the power-seeking ambi-tions of individuals in a less violent direction (forexample, the pursuit of wealth), the former is muchless able to do so. For realists, it is self-evident thatthe incidence of violence is greater at the inter-national than the domestic level. A prominentexplanation that realists provide for this differencein behaviour relates to the different organizational

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structure of domestic and international politics.Realists argue that the basic structure of inter-national politics is one of anarchy in that each of theindependent sovereign states consider themselves tobe their own highest authority and do not recognizea higher power above them. Conversely, domesticpolitics is often described as a hierarchical structurein which different political actors stand in variousrelations of super- and subordination.

It is largely on the basis of how realists depict theinternational environment that they conclude thatthe first priority for state leaders is to ensure the sur-vival of their state. Under anarchy, the survival ofthe state cannot be guaranteed. Realists correctlyassume that all states wish to perpetuate their exist-ence. Looking back at history, however, realists notethat the actions of some states resulted in otherstates losing their existence (for example, Poland hasexperienced this fate four times in the past three cen-turies). This is partly explained in light of the powerdifferentials of states. Intuitively, states with morepower stand a better chance of surviving than stateswith less power. Power is crucial to the realist lexi-con and traditionally has been defined narrowly inmilitary strategic terms. It is the ability to get what youwant either through the threat or use of force. Yetirrespective of how much power a state may possess,the core national interest of all states must be sur-vival. While states obviously have various interests,such as economic, environmental, and humanitarian,if their existence was to be jeopardized, then theseother interests would not stand a chance of ever beingrealized. Like the pursuit of power, the promotion ofthe national interest is an iron law of necessity.

Self-help is the principle of action in ananarchical system where there is no global govern-ment. According to Realism, each state actor isresponsible for ensuring their own well-being andsurvival. Realists do not believe it is prudent for astate to entrust its safety and survival to anotheractor or international institution such as the Leagueof Nations or the United Nations. States, in short,should not depend on other states or institutions toensure their own security. Unlike in domestic polit-ics, there is no emergency number that states candial when they are in mortal danger.

You may at this point be asking what options areavailable to states to ensure their own security. Con-

sistent with the principle of self-help, if a state feelsthreatened it should seek to augment its own powercapabilities by engaging, for example, in a militaryarms build-up. Yet this may prove to be insufficientfor a number of smaller states that feel threatened bya much larger state. This brings us to one of the cru-cial mechanisms that realists throughout the ageshave considered to be essential to preserving the lib-erty of states—the balance of power. Althoughvarious meanings have been attributed to the con-cept of the balance of power, the most common def-inition holds that if the survival of a state or a num-ber of weaker states is threatened by a hegemonicstate or coalition of stronger states, they should joinforces, establish a formal alliance, and seek to pre-serve their own independence by checking thepower of the opposing side. The mechanism of thebalance of power seeks to ensure an equilibrium ofpower in which case no one state or coalition ofstates is in a position to dominate all the others. Thecold war competition between the East and West, asinstitutionalized through the formal alliance systemof the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO), provides a prominentexample of the balance of power mechanism inaction.

The peaceful conclusion of the cold war caughtmany realists off guard. Given that realists claim ascientific basis to their causal account of the world, itis not surprising that their inability to foresee thedynamics that led to the end of the bipolar cold warsystem sparked the publication of several powerfulcritiques of realist theory. Various scholarsemphasized the importance of individuals and therole of ideational factors in changing the behaviourof the Soviet Union. If realism was in troubleexplaining the dynamics of the inter-state system, itwas in even deeper water in providing a persuasiveaccount of new developments such as regional inte-gration, humanitarian intervention, and the emer-gence of a security community in Western Europe. Inaddition, proponents of globalization argued thatrealism’s privileged actor, the state, was in declinerelative to non-state actors such as transnationalcorporations and powerful regional institutions. Thecumulative weight of these criticisms led many toquestion the analytical and moral adequacy of realistthought.

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By way of a response to the critics, it is worthreminding them that the death-knell of Realism hasbeen sounded a number of times already, by the sci-entific approach in the 1960s and transnationalismin the 1970s, only to see the resurgence of a robustform of structural realism in the 1980s (commonlytermed ‘neo-realism’). In this respect Realism shareswith Conservatism (its ideological godfather) therecognition that a theory without the means tochange is without the means of its own preservation.The question of Realism’s resilience touches uponone of its central claims, namely, that it is theembodiment of laws of international politics whichremain true across time (history) and space (geo-politics). This argument is made by a leading con-temporary realist, Robert Gilpin, who cast doubt on‘whether or not twentieth-century students of inter-national relations know anything that Thucydidesand his fifth-century bc compatriots did not knowabout the behaviour of states’ (1981: 227–8).

The question whether Realism does embody ‘time-less truths’ about politics will be returned to in theconclusion of the chapter. Could a scholar whounderstood the history of international conflict inthe fifth century bc really apply the same conceptualtools to global politics at the beginning of the thirdmillennium? In the following section we will beginto unravel Realism in order to reveal the way inwhich the tradition has evolved over the last twenty-

five centuries. After considering the main tributarieswhich flow into the realist stream of thinking, thethird section will establish a core set of realist prin-ciples to which all realists could subscribe.

One Realism, or many?

The intellectual exercise of articulating a unifiedtheory of Realism has been criticized by writers whoare both sympathetic to and critical of the tradition(Doyle 1997; M. J. Smith 1986). The belief that thereis not one realism, but many, leads logically to adelineation of different types of realism. In the lastfew years a number of alternative thematic classifi-cations have been offered to differentiate realisminto a variety of distinct categories. The most simpledistinction is a form of periodization that com-monly differentiates realism into three historicalperiods: classical realism (up to the twentieth cen-tury), which is frequently depicted as beginning

with Thucydides’ text on the Peloponnesian Warbetween Athens and Sparta and incorporating theideas of many of those included in the classic canonof Western political thought, modern realism(1939–79), which typically takes the so-called FirstGreat Debate between the scholars of the inter-warperiod and a new wave of scholars who began toenter the field immediately before and after the Sec-ond World War as its point of departure; and struc-tural or neo-realism (1979 onwards) that officiallyentered the picture following the publication ofKenneth Waltz’s landmark text, Theory ofInternational Politics. While these different periods

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suggest a neat historical sequence, they are problem-atic in so far as they close down the important ques-tion about divergence within each historical phase.For example, not all classical, modern, or structuralrealists agree on the causes of war, on what theproper relationship between power and moralityshould be, or on whether states are primarily motiv-ated by defensive or aggressive impulses. Rather thanopt for the neat but intellectually unsatisfactory sys-tem of historical periodization, we outline below ourown representation of realisms that makes import-ant connections with existing categories deployedby other thinkers in the field. A summary of the var-ieties of Realism outlined below is contained inTable 7.1.

Classical Realism

The classical realist lineage begins with Thucydides’representation of power politics as a law of humanbehaviour. The drive for power and the will to dom-inate are held to be fundamental aspects of humannature. The behaviour of the state as a self-seekingegoist is understood to be merely a reflection of thecharacteristics of the people that comprise the state.It is human nature that explains why internationalpolitics is necessarily power politics. This reductionof Realism to a condition of human nature is onewhich frequently reappears in the leading works ofthe realist canon, most famously in the work of thehigh priest of post-war Realism, Hans J. Morgenthau.Classical realists argue that it is from the nature ofman that the essential features of international polit-ics, such as competition, fear, and war can beexplained. Morgenthau notes, ‘politics, like societyin general, is governed by objective laws that havetheir roots in human nature’ (Morgenthau [1948]1955: 4). The important point for Morgenthau is,first, to recognize that these laws exist and second, todevise the most appropriate policies that are consist-ent with the basic fact that human beings are flawedcreatures. For both Thucydides and Morgenthau, theessential continuity of the power-seeking behaviourof states is rooted in the biological drives of humanbeings.

Another distinguishing characteristic of classicalrealism is its adherents’ belief in the primordial char-

acter of power and ethics. Classical realism is funda-mentally about the struggle for belonging, a strugglethat is often violent. Patriotic virtue is required inorder for communities to survive in this historicbattle between good and evil, a virtue that longpredates the emergence of sovereignty-based notionsof community in the mid-seventeenth century.Classical realists therefore differ from contemporaryrealists in the sense that they engaged with moralphilosophy and sought to reconstruct an under-standing of virtue in light of practice and historicalcircumstance. Two paradigmatic classical realistswho wrestled with the degree to which state leaderscould be guided by ethical considerations wereThucydides and Machiavelli.

Thucydides was the historian of the Pelopon-nesian War, a conflict between two Great Powers inthe ancient Greek world, Athens and Sparta. Thucy-dides’ work has been admired by subsequent gener-ations of realists for the insights he raised aboutmany of the perennial issues of international polit-ics. Thucydides’ explanation of the underlying causeof the war was ‘the growth of Athenian power andthe fear which this caused in Sparta’ (1.23) is con-sidered to be a classic example of the impact that theanarchical structure of international politics has onthe behaviour of state actors. On this reading, Thu-cydides makes it clear that Sparta’s national interest,like that of all states, was survival, and the changingdistribution of power represented a direct threat toits existence. Sparta was, therefore, compelled bynecessity to go to war in order to forestall beingvanquished by Athens. Thucydides also makes itclear that Athens felt equally compelled to pursuepower in order to preserve the empire it hadacquired. The famous Athenian leader, Pericles,claimed to be acting on the basis of the most fun-damental of human motivations: ambition, fear,and self-interest.

One of the significant episodes of the war betweenAthens and Sparta is known as the ‘Melian dialogue’and represents a fascinating illustration of a numberof key realist principles. Case study 1 (Box 7.1)reconstructs the dialogue between the Athenianleaders who arrived on the island of Melos to asserttheir right of conquest over the islanders, and theresponse this provoked. In short, what the Atheniansare asserting over the Melians is the logic of power

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politics. Because of their vastly superior militaryforce, they are able to present a fait accompli to theMelians: either submit peacefully or be extermin-ated. The Melians for their part try and buck thelogic of power politics, appealing in turn witharguments grounded in justice, God, and theirallies the Spartans. As the dialogue makes clear, theMelians were forced to submit to the realist ironlaw that ‘the strong do what they have the powerto do and the weak accept what they have toaccept’.

Later classical realists—notably Machiavelli andMorgenthau—would concur with Thucydides’ sug-gestion that the logic of power politics has universalapplicability. Instead of Athens and Melos, we couldjust as easily substitute the vulnerability of Machi-avelli’s beloved Florence to the expansionist policiesof external Great Powers. In Morgenthau’s era, therewere many examples where the innate drive formore power and territory seemed to confirm the real-ist iron law: for example, Nazi Germany and Czecho-slovakia in 1939, and the Soviet Union and Hungaryin 1956. The seemingly endless cycle of war andconflict confirmed in the minds of twentieth-century classical realists the essentially aggressiveimpulses in human nature. For Morgenthau, ‘the‘drives to live, to propagate, and to dominate arecommon to all men’ (Morgenthau [1948] 1955: 30).How is a leader supposed to act in a world animatedby such dark forces? The answer given by Machi-avelli is that all obligations and treaties with otherstates must be disregarded if the security of thecommunity is under threat. Moreover, imperialexpansion is legitimate as it is a means of gaininggreater security. Other classical realists, however,advocate a more temperate understanding of moralconduct. Mid-twentieth-century realists such as But-terfield, Carr, Morgenthau, and Wolfers believed thatanarchy could be mitigated by wise leadership andthe pursuit of the national interest in ways that arecompatible with international order. Taking theirlead from Thucydides, they recognized that actingpurely on the basis of power and self-interest with-out any consideration of moral and ethical prin-ciples frequently results in self-defeating policies.After all, as Thucydides showed, Athens suffered anepic defeat while following the realist tenet of self-interest.

Structural realism

Structural realists concur that international politicsis essentially a struggle for power but they do notendorse the classical realist assumption that this is aresult of human nature. Instead, structural realistsattribute security competition and inter-state con-flict to the lack of an overarching authority abovestates and the distribution of power in the inter-national system. This form of realism is most com-monly associated with Waltz’s Theory of InternationalPolitics. Waltz defined the structure of the inter-national system in terms of three elements –organizing principle, differentiation of units, anddistribution of capabilities. Waltz identifies two dif-ferent organising principles: anarchy, which corres-ponds to the decentralized reality of internationalpolitics, and hierarchy, which is the basis ofdomestic order. He argues that the units of the inter-national system are functionally similar sovereignstates, hence unit-level variation is irrelevant inexplaining international outcomes. It is the third tier,the distribution of capabilities across units, that is,according to Waltz, of fundamental importance tounderstanding crucial international outcomes.According to structural realists, the distribution ofpower in the international system is the keyindependent variable to understanding importantinternational outcomes such as war and peace, alli-ance politics, and the balance of power. Structuralrealists are interested in providing a rank-ordering ofstates so as to be able to differentiate and count thenumber of Great Powers that exist at any particularpoint in time. The number of Great Powers, in turn,determines the structure of the international system.For example, during the cold war from 1945 to 1989there were two Great Powers—the United States andthe Soviet Union—that constituted the bipolarinternational system.

How does the international distribution of powerimpact on the behaviour of states, particularly theirpower-seeking behaviour? In the most general sense,Waltz argues that states, especially the Great Powers,have to be sensitive to the capabilities of other states.The possibility that any state may use force to advanceits interests results in all states being worried abouttheir survival. According to Waltz, power is a means to

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the end of security. In a significant passage, Waltzwrites, ‘because power is a possibly useful means, sens-ible statesmen try to have an appropriate amount ofit’. He adds, ‘in crucial situations, however, the ultim-ate concern of states is not for power but for security’(Waltz 1989: 40). In other words, rather than beingpower maximizers, states, according to Waltz, aresecurity maximizers. Waltz argues that power maxi-mization often proves to be dysfunctional because ittriggers a counterbalancing coalition of states.

A different account of the power dynamics thatoperate in the anarchical system is provided by JohnMearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism, whichis another variant of structural realism. While shar-ing many of the same basic assumptions with Waltz’sstructural realist theory, which is frequently termeddefensive realism, Mearsheimer differs from Waltzwhen it comes to describing the behaviour of states.Most fundamentally, ‘offensive realism parts com-pany with defensive realism over the question ofhow much power states want’ (Mearsheimer 2001:21). According to Mearsheimer, the structure of theinternational system compels states to maximizetheir relative power position. Under anarchy, heagrees that self-help is the basic principle of action.Yet he also argues that not only do all states possesssome offensive military capability, but there is agreat deal of uncertainty about the intentions ofother states. Consequently, Mearsheimer concludesthat there are no satisfied or status quo states; ratherall states are continuously searching for opportun-ities to gain power at the expense of other states.Contrary to Waltz, Mearsheimer argues that statesrecognize that the best path to peace is to accumu-late more power than anyone else. Indeed the idealposition, although one that Mearsheimer argues isvirtually impossible to achieve, is to be the globalhegemon of the international system. Since he doesnot consider global hegemony to be feasible, primar-ily because of the difficulty of projecting poweracross large bodies of water, ‘the world is condemnedto perpetual great-power competition’ (2001: 2).

Contemporary realist challenges tostructural realism

While offensive realism does represent an importantcontribution to realism, some contemporary realistsare sceptical of the notion that the international dis-tribution of power alone can explain the behaviourof states. Since the end of the cold war a group ofscholars have attempted to move beyond the parsi-monious assumptions of structural realism andincorporated a number of additional factors locatedat the individual and domestic level into theirexplanation of international politics. While systemicfactors are recognized to be an important influenceon the behaviour of states, so are factors such as theperceptions of state leaders, state-society relation-ships, and the motivation of states. In attempting tobuild a bridge between structural and unit-level fac-tors (which many classical realists emphasized), thisgroup of scholars has been characterized by GideonRose (1998) as ‘neoclassical realists’. According toStephen Walt the causal logic of neoclassical realism‘places domestic politics as an intervening variablebetween the distribution of power and foreign policybehavior’ (Walt 2002: 211).

One such important intervening variable is leadersthemselves, namely how they perceive the inter-national distribution of power. There is no objective,independent reading of the distribution of power:rather, what matters is how state leaders derive anunderstanding of the distribution of power. Whilestructural realists assume that all states have a similarset of interests, neoclassical realists such as RandallSchweller argue that historically this is not the case.He argues that with respect to Waltz, the assumptionthat all states have an interest in security results inneo-realism exhibiting a profoundly status quo basis(Schweller 1996). Schweller returns to the writings ofrealists such as Carr, Morgenthau, and Kissinger toremind us of the key distinction that they madebetween status quo and revisionist states. Neoclas-sical realists would argue that the fact that Germanywas a revisionist state in the 1930s and a status quostate since the end of the Second World War is offundamental importance to understanding its role inthe international system. Not only do states differ interms of their interests, but they also differ in terms

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of their ability to extract and direct resources fromthe societies that they rule. Fareed Zakaria (1998)introduces the intervening variable of state strengthinto his theory of state-centred realism. Statestrength is defined as the ability of a state to mobilizeand direct the resources at its disposal in the pursuitof particular interests. Neoclassical realists argue thatdifferent types of states possess different capacities totranslate the various elements of national power intostate power. Thus, contrary to Waltz, all states can-not be treated as ‘like units’.

There is still another group of realist thinkers whoaccept the basic assumptions of realism and yet areaware of the fact that the theory is incomplete. Thesefigures—whom we call rational choice realists—recognize that anarchy does not prevent durablepatterns of cooperation from occurring under cer-tain specified conditions. The key differencebetween structural realists and rational choice real-ists turns on the role of international institutions.While Mearsheimer believes that institutions ‘havemattered rather little’ in international politics(Mearsheimer 1994/5: 49), rational choice realistssee institutions playing an important role. Even forrealists, institutions can fulfil several importantfunctions such as binding weak states into theinternational order and providing a bargaining chipto encourage unstable states to give up dangerousmilitary technologies for membership in a regimeor institution. What is immediately apparent here isthat rational choice realists are seeking to applyrealism to all states rather than just the GreatPowers.

Rational choice realists have much in commonwith neo-liberals. Both assume that units (whetherindividuals or states) are rational and that they seekto maximize their utility (see Ch.9). Both point towidespread evidence of cooperation across a range ofeconomic and security issue-areas. Set against thisoverlap, key differences remain. Rational choice real-ists recognize that anarchy casts a permanentshadow over cooperative arrangements. Underanarchy, there is a continual fear of cheating, and aconcern with uneven distributional gains. Even here,

rational choice realists argue that relative gains prob-lems can potentially be overcome. Joe Grieco argues,for example, that side payments can be made to dis-advantaged states in order to alter their incentives tocooperate (Grieco 1993a). While rational choice real-ists are not a cohesive group of scholars with a clearlyidentified position, it is apparent that their method-driven approach to Realism is opening up a signifi-cant research programme that engages with neo-liberalism without losing sight of enduring featuresof the realist tradition such as the primacy of statepower and the problem of anarchy.

Given the varieties of Realism that exist, it ishardly surprising that the overall coherence of Real-ism as a tradition of inquiry into international rela-tions has been questioned (Forde 1992: 62). Theanswer to the question of ‘coherence’ is, of course,contingent upon how strict the criteria are for judg-ing the continuities which underpin a particulartheory. Here it is perhaps a mistake to understandtraditions as a single stream of thought, handeddown in a neatly wrapped package from one gener-ation of realists to another. Instead it is preferable tothink of living traditions like Realism as theembodiment of both continuities and conflicts. Forthis reason it is important for students to read realistsin their historical and political contexts, to try andunderstand the world they were speaking to and theforces they were reacting against.

While there is intellectual merit in dividing Real-ism into distinct categories, there are good peda-gogical reasons for attempting to identify a sharedcore of propositions to which all realists subscribe(see section below, ‘The essential Realism’). In thefirst instance, there is virtue in simplicity; complexideas can be filtered, leaving a residual substancewhich may not conform to any one of the ingredi-ents but is nevertheless a virtual representation of allof them. A second reason for attempting to arrive at acomposite Realism is that, despite the differentstrands running through the tradition, there is asense in which all realists share a common set ofpropositions. These will be considered in the thirdsection of this chapter.

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The essential Realism

The previous paragraphs have argued that Realism isa theoretical broad church, embracing a variety ofauthors and texts. Despite the numerous denomin-ations, we argue that all realists subscribe to the fol-lowing ‘three Ss’: statism, survival, self-help.4 Each ofthese elements is considered in more detail in thesubsections below.

Statism

For realists, the state is the main actor and sover-eignty is its distinguishing trait. The meaning of thesovereign state is inextricably bound up with the useof force. In terms of its internal dimension, to illus-trate this relationship between violence and the statewe need look no further than Max Weber’s famousdefinition of the state as ‘the monopoly of the legit-imate use of physical force within a given territory’.5

Within this territorial space, sovereignty meansthat the state has supreme authority to make andenforce laws. This is the basis of the unwritten con-tract between individuals and the state. According toHobbes, for example, we trade our liberty in returnfor a guarantee of security. Once security has beenestablished, civil society can begin. But in theabsence of security, there can be no art, no culture,no society. The first move, then, for the realist is toorganize power domestically. In this respect, ‘everystate is fundamentally a Machstaat’ or power state

(Donelan 1990: 25). Only after power has beenorganized, can community begin.

Realist international theory appears to operateaccording to the assumption that, domestically, theproblem of order and security is solved. The presenceof a sovereign authority domestically implies thatindividuals need not worry about their own security,since this is provided for them in the form of a sys-tem of law, police protection, prisons, and othercoercive measures. This allows members of the polit-ical community living ‘inside’ the state to pursue thegood life. However, on the ‘outside’, in the relationsamong independent sovereign states, insecurities,dangers, and threats to the very existence of the stateloom large. Realists largely explain this on the basisthat the very condition for order and security—namely, the existence of a sovereign—is missingfrom the international realm. Yet it is worthwhile toevaluate critically the assumptions that are beingmade here. In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, isit really the case that you always feel secure insideyour own state? Is the inside/outside distinction thatrealists draw between peace and security on the onehand, and violence and insecurity on the other handdefensible?

Realists claim that in anarchy, states compete withother states for security, markets, influence, and soon. And the nature of the competition is viewed inzero-sum terms; in other words, more for one actormeans less for another. This competitive logic of

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power politics makes agreement on universal prin-ciples difficult, apart from the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other sovereignstates. This international legal aspect of sovereigntyfunctions as a ‘no trespass sign’ placed on the borderbetween states. But even this principle, designed tofacilitate coexistence, is suspended by realists whoargue that in practice non-intervention does notapply in relations between Great Powers and their‘near abroad’. As evidenced by the most recentbehaviour of the United States in Afghanistan andIraq, powerful states are able to overturn the non-intervention principle on the grounds of nationalsecurity and international order.

Given that the first move of the state is to organizepower domestically, and the second is to accumulatepower internationally, it is self-evidently importantto consider in more depth what realists mean bytheir ubiquitous fusion of politics with power. It isone thing to say that international politics is a strug-gle for power, but this merely begs the question ofwhat realists mean by power. Morgenthau offers thefollowing definition of power: ‘man’s control overthe minds and actions of other men’ ([1948] 1955:26). There are two important points that realistsmake about the elusive concept of power. First,power is a relational concept; one does not exercisepower in a vacuum, but in relation to another entity.Second, power is a relative concept; calculationsneed to be made not only about one’s own powercapabilities, but about the power that other stateactors possess. Yet the task of accurately assessing thepower of states is infinitely complex, and often isreduced to counting the number of troops, tanks,aircraft, and naval ships a country possesses in thebelief that this translates to the ability to get otheractors to do something they would not otherwise do.

There have been a number of criticisms of howrealists define and measure power. Critics argue thatRealism has been purchased at a discount preciselybecause its currency, power, has remained under-theorized and inconsistently used. Simply byasserting that states seek power provides no answerto crucial questions. Why do states struggle forpower? Why is the accumulation of power, as Mor-genthau argued, ‘always the immediate aim’? Surelypower is a means to an end rather than an end initself? How much power do states want? Is there not

a difference between the mere possession of powerand the ability to change the behaviour of others?

Contemporary structural realists have in recentyears sought to bring more conceptual clarity to bearon the meaning of power in the realist discourse.Waltz tries to overcome the problem by shifting thefocus from power to capabilities. He suggests thatcapabilities can be ranked according to their strengthin the following areas: ‘size of population and terri-tory, resource endowment, economic capability,military strength, political stability and competence’(1979: 131). The difficulty here is that resourcestrength does not always lead to military victory. Forexample, in the 1967 Six Day War between Israel andEgypt, Jordan, and Syria, the distribution ofresources clearly favoured the Arab coalition and yetthe supposedly weaker side annihilated its enemies’forces and seized their territory. The definition ofpower as capabilities is even less successful atexplaining the relative economic success of Japanover China. A more sophisticated understanding ofpower would focus on the ability of a state to controlor influence its environment in situations that arenot necessarily conflictual.

An additional weakness with the realist treatmentof power concerns its exclusive focus upon statepower. For realists, states are the only actors thatreally ‘count’. Transnational corporations, inter-national organizations, and ideology-driven terroristnetworks, such as Al Qaeda, rise and fall but the stateis the one permanent feature in the landscape ofmodern global politics. The extent to which non-state actors bear the imprint of a statist identity isfurther endorsed by the fact that these actors have tomake their way in an international system whoserules are made by states. There is no better exampleof this than the importance of American hegemonicpower ‘underwriting’ the Bretton Woods trading sys-tem which has set the framework for internationaleconomic relations since 1945. The motivation forthis was not altruism on the part of the USA but therational calculation that it had more to gain frommanaging the international system than to lose byrefusing to exercise leadership. Moreover, realistsargue that an open, free-trade economic system,such as that which was established at Bretton Woods,depends on the existence of a hegemon who is will-ing to shoulder the financial burdens of managing

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the system. This realist argument, popularly knownas hegemonic stability theory, maintains thatinternational economic order is dependent on theexistence of a dominant state.

Survival

The second principle which unites realists of all per-suasions is the assertion that, in international polit-ics, the pre-eminent goal is survival. Althoughthere is an ambiguity in the works of the realists as towhether the accumulation of power is an end initself, one would think that there is no dissentingfrom the argument that the ultimate concern ofstates is for security. Survival is held to be a precondi-tion for attaining all other goals, whether theseinvolve conquest or merely independence. Accord-ing to Waltz, ‘beyond the survival motive, the aimsof states may be endlessly varied’ (1979: 91). Yet aswe mentioned in the previous section, a recent con-troversy among structural realists has arisen over thequestion of whether states are in fact principallysecurity or power maximizers. Defensive realistssuch as Waltz and Joseph Grieco (1997) argue thatstates have security as their principal interest andtherefore only seek the requisite amount of power toensure their own survival. According to this view,states are profoundly defensive actors and will notseek to gain greater amounts of power if that meansjeopardizing their own security. Offensive realistssuch as Mearsheimer argue that the ultimate goal ofall states is to achieve a hegemonic position in theinternational system. States, according to this view,always desire more power and are willing, if theopportunity arises, to alter the existing distributionof power even if such an action may jeopardize theirown security. In terms of survival, defensive realistshold that the existence of status quo powers lessensthe competition for power while offensive realistsargue that the competition is always keen becauserevisionist states and aspiring hegemons are alwayswilling to take risks with the aim of improving theirposition in the international system.

Niccolo Machiavelli tried to make a ‘science’ out ofhis reflections on the art of survival. His short andengaging book, The Prince, was written with theexplicit intention of codifying a set of maxims that

will enable leaders to maintain their hold on power.Machiavelli derived these maxims from his experi-ence as a diplomat and his studies of ancient history.One of the most important maxims was that princesor sovereigns must be prepared to break their prom-ises if it is in their interests, and to conquer neigh-bouring states before the letter (inevitably) attackthem.

In important respects, we find two related Machia-vellian themes recurring in the writings of modernrealists, both of which derive from the idea that therealm of international politics requires differentmoral and political rules from those which apply indomestic politics. The task of understanding the realnature of international politics, and the need to pro-tect the state at all costs (even if this may mean thesacrifice of one’s own citizens) places a heavy burdenon the shoulders of state leaders. In the words ofHenry Kissinger, the academic realist who becameSecretary of State during the Nixon presidency, ‘anation’s survival is its first and ultimate responsibil-ity; it cannot be compromised or put to risk’ (1977:204). Their guide must be an ethic of responsibil-ity: the careful weighing up of consequences; therealization that individual acts of an immoral kindmight have to be taken for the greater good. By wayof an example, think of the ways in which govern-ments frequently suspend the legal and politicalrights of ‘suspected terrorists’ in view of the threatthey pose to ‘national security’. An ethic of responsi-bility is frequently used as a justification for breakingthe laws of war, as in the case of the United States’decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima andNagasaki in 1945. The principal difficulty with therealist formulation of an ‘ethics of responsibility’ isthat, while instructing leaders to consider the con-sequences of their actions, it does not provide aguide to how state leaders should weigh the con-sequences (M. J. Smith 1986: 51).

Not only does Realism provide an alternativemoral code for state leaders, it suggests a wider objec-tion to the whole enterprise of bringing ethics intointernational politics. Starting from the assumptionthat each state has its own particular values andbeliefs, realists argue that the state is the supremegood and there can be no community beyond bor-ders. Without a common culture, and commoninstitutions, the idea of an ‘international com-

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munity’, so frequently articulated by journalists, isseriously premature. E. H. Carr turned scepticismabout moral universals into a ‘critical weapon’ whichhe wielded in order to reveal how the supposedlyuniversal principles adumbrated by the Great Powers(such as the virtue of free trade or self-determination) were really ‘unconscious reflexionsof national policy’ (Carr 1946: 87). This moral rela-tivism has generated a substantial body of criticism,particularly from liberal theorists who endorse thenotion of universal human rights.

Self-help

Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics (1979)brought to the realist tradition a deeper understand-ing of the international system within which statescoexist. Unlike many other realists, Waltz arguedthat international politics was not unique because ofthe regularity of war and conflict, since this was alsofamiliar in domestic politics. The key differencebetween domestic and international orders lies intheir structure. In the domestic polity, citizens donot have to defend themselves. In the internationalsystem, there is no higher authority to prevent andcounter the use of force. Security can therefore onlybe realized through self-help. In an anarchic struc-ture, ‘self-help is necessarily the principle of action’(Waltz 1979: 111). But in the course of providingfor one’s own security, the state in question willautomatically be fuelling the insecurity of otherstates.

The term given to this spiral of insecurity is thesecurity dilemma.6 According to Wheeler andBooth, security dilemmas exist ‘when the militarypreparations of one state create an unresolvableuncertainty in the mind of another as to whetherthose preparations are for “defensive” purposes only(to enhance its security in an uncertain world) orwhether they are for offensive purposes (to changethe status quo to its advantage)’ (1992: 30). Thisscenario suggests that one state’s quest for security isoften another state’s source of insecurity. States findit very difficult to trust one another and often viewthe intentions of others in a negative light. Thus themilitary preparations of one state are likely to bematched by neighbouring states. The irony is that in

the end, states often feel no more secure than beforethey undertook measures to enhance their ownsecurity.

In a self-help system, structural realists argue thatthe balance of power will emerge even in the absenceof a conscious policy to maintain the balance (i.e.prudent statecraft). Waltz argues that balances ofpower result irrespective of the intentions of any par-ticular state. In an anarchical system populated bystates that seek to perpetuate themselves, allianceswill be formed that seek to check and balance thepower against threatening states. A fortuitous bal-ance will be established through the interactions ofstates in the same way that an equilibrium isestablished between firms and consumers in a freeeconomic market (according to classical liberal eco-nomic theory). Classical realists are more likely toemphasize the crucial role state leaders and diplo-mats play in maintaining the balance of power. Inother words, the balance of power is not natural orinevitable, it must be constructed.

There is a lively debate among realists concerningthe stability of the balance of power system. This isespecially the case today in that many argue that thebalance of power has been replaced by an unbal-anced unipolar order. It is questionable whetherother countries will actively attempt to balanceagainst the United States as structural realism wouldpredict. Whether it is the contrived balance of theConcert of Europe in the early nineteenth century,or the more fortuitous balance of the cold war, bal-ances of power are broken—either through war orthrough peaceful change—and new balancesemerge. What the perennial collapsing of the bal-ance of power demonstrates is that states are at bestable to mitigate the worst consequences of the secur-ity dilemma but are not able to escape it. The reasonfor this terminal condition is the absence of trust ininternational relations.

Historically realists have illustrated the lack oftrust among states by reference to the parable of the‘stag hunt’. In Man, the State and War, Kenneth Waltzrevisits Rousseau’s parable:

Assume that five men who have acquired a rudimentary abilityto speak and to understand each other happen to cometogether at a time when all of them suffer from hunger. Thehunger of each will be satisfied by the fifth part of a stag, sothey ‘agree’ to cooperate in a project to trap one. But also the

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hunger of any one of them will be satisfied by a hare, so, as ahare comes within reach, one of them grabs it. The defectorobtains the means of satisfying his hunger but in doing sopermits the stag to escape. His immediate interest prevails overconsideration for his fellows. (1959: 167–8)

Waltz argues that the metaphor of the stag hunt pro-vides not only a justification for the establishment ofgovernment, but a basis for understanding the prob-lem of coordinating the interests of the individualversus the interests of the common good, and thepay-off between short-term interests and long-terminterests. In the self-help system of international pol-itics, the logic of self-interest mitigates against theprovision of collective goods such as ‘security’ or‘free trade’. In the case of the latter, according to thetheory of comparative advantage, all states would bewealthier in a world that allowed freedom of goodsand services across borders. But individual states, orgroups of states like the European Union, canincrease their wealth by pursuing protectionist pol-icies provided other states do not respond in kind. Ofcourse the logical outcome is for the remaining statesto become protectionist, international trade col-lapses, and a world recession reduces the wealth ofeach state.

The contemporary liberal solution to this problemof collective action in self-help systems is throughthe construction of regimes (see Ch.16). In otherwords, by establishing patterns of rules, norms andprocedures, such as those embodied in the WorldTrade Organization (WTO), states are likely to bemore confident that other states will comply withthe rules and that defectors will be punished. Con-temporary structural realists agree with liberals thatregimes can facilitate cooperation under certain cir-cumstances, although realists believe that in a self-help system cooperation is ‘harder to achieve, moredifficult to maintain, and more dependent on statepower’ (Grieco 1993b: 302). One reason for this isthat structural realists argue that states are moreconcerned about relative than absolute gains. Thusthe question is not whether all will be better offthrough cooperation, but rather who is likely to gainmore than another. It is because of this concern withrelative gains issues that realists argue that cooper-ation is difficult to achieve in a self-help system (seeCh.9).

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Conclusion: Realism and the globalization of world politics

The chapter opened by considering the oftenrepeated realist claim that the pattern of inter-national politics—wars interrupted for periods char-acterized by the preparation for future wars—haveremained constant over the preceding twenty-fivecenturies. Realists have consistently held that thecontinuities in international relations are moreimportant than the changes, but many find this tobe increasingly problematic in the present age ofglobalization. In the concluding paragraphs below,we will briefly argue that the importance of Realismhas not been diminished by the dynamics of global-ization. We will do so by initially challenging theargument that economic interdependence has madewar less likely. We then argue that the state con-tinues to be the dominant unit in world politics.Finally, we claim that globalization should not beseen as a process that is disconnected from the dis-tribution of power in the international system; inthis sense, this current phase of globalization is fun-damentally tied to Westernization and, to be evenmore specific, Americanization.

One variant of the globalization thesis, pro-pounded by Francis Fukuyama, was that the end ofthe cold war represented the logical triumph of Lib-eralism. According to this thesis, Realism wasincreasingly seen to be an anachronism—a cold warway of thinking whose time had passed. The factthat structural realists in particular believed thebipolar system would continue well into the twenty-first century (Waltz 1979: 210), further contributedto the sense that realism was in decay. Critics ofstructural realism were right in pointing to itsinability to anticipate the great upheavals of 1989–91. Yet many realists have provided explanations toaccount for the end of the cold war and do not regardit to be a major anomaly for realism. For a moredetailed discussion of this controversy, see Casestudy 2 (Box 7.2).

Realism’s strongest riposte lies not so much inchallenging a liberal interpretation of the end of thecold war as in questioning the extent to which lib-erals’ optimism in the spread of democracy, in thegrowth of free trade, and the general pacification of

world politics will have traction in the future. Thecrucial moment that brought the post-cold war erato an end was of course that fateful Tuesday morningin September 2001 when Al Qaeda terrorists flewhijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the

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Pentagon. In the days immediately after the attack,President George W. Bush and a coalition of leadersfrom other states declared themselves to be fightinga war against terrorism. The two US-led wars againstAfghanistan and Iraq, and the general climate of fearand insecurity caused by acts of terror, suggests a ser-ious flaw in the liberal argument that war hadbecome obsolescent.

Not surprisingly, leading realist thinkers havebeen quick to seize on the apparent convergencebetween our experience since 11 September 2001 (‘9/11’) and the cycle of violence predicted by the the-ory. There were, however, some apparent contradic-tions in the realist account of the conflict. To beginwith, the attacks on the US homeland were commit-ted by a non-state actor. Had one of the significantnorms of the Westphalian order become unhinged,namely, that war happens between sovereign states?Not only was the enemy a global network of AlQaeda operatives, their goal was unconventional inthat they did not seek to conquer territory but tochallenge by force the ideological supremacy of theWest. Set against these anomalies, the leading statesin the system were quick to identify the networkwith certain territorial states—the Taliban Govern-ment of Afghanistan being the most immediateexample, but also other pariah states which allegedlyharboured terrorists. The United States was quick tolink the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with itsglobal war on terror. Moreover, rather than identify-ing the terrorists as transnational criminals andusing police enforcement methods to counter theirthreat, the USA and its allies defined them asenemies of the state who had to be targeted anddefeated using conventional military means.

For realists such as John Gray and Kenneth Waltz,9/11 was not the beginning of a new era in worldpolitics so much as a case of ‘business as usual’ (seetheir essays in Booth and Dunne 2002). What mat-ters most, argues Waltz, are the continuities in thestructural imbalance of power in the system and thedistribution of nuclear weapons. Crises are to beexpected because the logic of self-help generatesperiodic crises. Their analysis is a stark rejoinder tothe more idealist defenders of globalization who seea new pacific world order emerging out of the ashesof the previous order. According to realists, 9/11 wasnever going to trigger a new era in governance: the

coalition of the willing that was forged in theimmediate aftermath was, in Waltz’s terms, ‘a milewide’, but only ‘an inch deep’. How prophetic thosewords have proven to be. The war against Iraq wasexecuted by the USA with the UK being the only sig-nificant diplomatic and military ally. Not only didmost states in the world oppose the war, leadingAmerican realists were public in their condemnation(see Box 7.3). Iraq, they argued, could have been

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deterred from threatening both the security of theUnited States and its neighbours in the Middle East.Furthermore, a costly military intervention followedby a lengthy occupation in the Middle East hasweakened the USA’s ability to contain the risingthreat from China. In short, the Bush presidency hasnot exercised power in a responsible and sensiblemanner.

The above is not to suggest that Realism is onlyuseful as a guide to understanding seemingly endur-ing patterns of war and conflict. It will continue toserve as a critical weapon for revealing the interplayof national interests beneath the rhetoric of univer-salist sentiments. There is no better example of thisin contemporary world politics than the foreign pol-icy of the USA. The war on terror is frequentlydefended in universalist terms—in his State of theUnion address in the run-up to the Iraq war, Presi-dent George W. Bush described the gathering stormas a fight between the forces of good versus evil.Behind the rhetoric of universal values, the USA hasused the war to justify a wide range of policy posi-tions that strengthen its economic and militarypower while undermining various multilateralagreements on arms control, the environment,human rights, and trade.

Realists do not have to situate their theory ofworld politics in opposition to globalization per se,rather, what they offer is a very different conceptual-ization of the process. What is important about arealist view of globalization is the claim that rudi-mentary transnational governance is possible but atthe same time it is entirely dependent on the distri-bution of power. Given the preponderance of powerthat the USA holds, it should not be a surprise that ithas been one of the foremost proponents of global-ization. The core values of globalization—liberalism,capitalism, and consumerism—are exactly thoseespoused by the United States. At a deeper cultural

level, realists ague that modernity is not, as liberalshope, dissolving the boundaries of difference amongthe peoples of the world. From classical realists suchas Rousseau to structural realists such as Waltz, prot-agonists have argued that interdependence is aslikely to breed ‘mutual vulnerability’ as peace andprosperity. And while questioning the extent towhich the world has become any more interdepend-ent in relative terms, realists insist that the state isnot going to be eclipsed by global forces operatingeither below or above the nation-state. Nationalism,realists have continuously reminded us, remains apotent force in world politics.

There are good reasons for thinking that thetwenty-first century will be a realist century. Despiteefforts of federalists to rekindle the idealist flame,Europe continues to be as divided by differentnational interests as it is united by a common good.As Jacques Chirac put it in 2000, a ‘united Europe ofstates’ was much more likely than a ‘United States ofEurope’. Outside of Europe and North America,many of the assumptions which underpinned thepost-war international order, particularly thoseassociated with human rights, are increasingly beingseen as nothing more than a Western idea backed byeconomic dollars and military ‘divisions’. If Chinacontinues its rate of economic growth, it will bemore economically powerful than the USA by 2020(Mearsheimer 1991: 398). By then, realism leads usto predict, Western norms of individual rights andresponsibilities will be under threat. Rather thantransforming global politics in its own image, as Lib-eralism has sought to do in the twentieth century,the West may need to become more realist in order forits traditions and values to survive the twenty-first.

For further information and case studies on thissubject, please visit the companion web site atwww.oup.com/uk/booksites/politics.

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