Basic Points in Realism

• Realistic
• Realpolitik
• Dependent on Factors Existing
• No importance to Ideology, Morals, Ethics.
• End Justifies the Means
• Most Important thing is State
• There is always lack of Trust between States
• State should pursue self-interest
• International Relations Always Chaotic
• Primary concern of State is Survival

Reading

The first assumption of realism is that the nation-state (usually abbreviated to ‘state’) is the principal
actor in international relations. Other bodies exist, such as individuals and organisations, but their
power is limited. Second, the state is a unitary actor. National interests, especially in times of war,
lead the state to speak and act with one voice. Third, decision-makers are rational actors in the
sense that rational decision-making leads to the pursuit of the national interest. Here, taking actions
that would make your state weak or vulnerable would not be rational. Realism suggests that all
leaders, no matter what their political persuasion, recognise this as they attempt to manage their
state’s affairs in order to survive in a competitive environment. Finally, states live in a context of
anarchy – that is, in the absence of anyone being in charge internationally. The often-used analogy
of there being ‘no one to call’ in an international emergency helps to underline this point. Within our
own states we typically have police forces, militaries, courts and so on. In an emergency, there is an
expectation that these institutions will ‘do something’ in response.

Internationally, there is no clear expectation of anyone or anything ‘doing something’ as there is no

established hierarchy. Therefore, states can ultimately only rely on themselves. As realism
frequently draws on examples from the past, there is a great deal of emphasis on the idea that
humans are essentially held hostage to repetitive patterns of behaviour determined by their nature.
Central to that assumption is the view that human beings are egoistic and desire power. Realists
believe that our selfishness, our appetite for power and our inability to trust others leads to
predictable outcomes. Perhaps this is why war has been so common throughout recorded history.
Since individuals are organised into states, human nature impacts on state behaviour. In that
respect, Niccolò Machiavelli focused on how the basic human characteristics influence the security
of the state. And in his time, leaders were usually male, which also influences the realist account of
politics. In The Prince (1532), Machiavelli stressed that a leader’s primary concern is to promote
national security. In order to successfully perform this task, the leader needs to be alert and cope
effectively with internal as well as external threats to his rule; he needs to be a lion and a fox. Power
(the Lion) and deception (the Fox) are crucial tools for the conduct of foreign policy. In Machiavelli’s
view, rulers obey the ‘ethics of responsibility’ rather than the conventional religious morality that
guides the average citizen – that is, they should be good when they can, but they must also be
willing to use violence when necessary to guarantee the survival of the state. In the aftermath of the
Second World War, Hans Morgenthau (1948) sought to develop a comprehensive international
theory as he believed that politics, like society in general, is governed by laws that have roots in
human nature. His concern was to clarify the relationship between interests and morality in
international politics, and his work drew heavily on the insights of historical figures such as
Thucydides and Machiavelli. In contrast to more optimistically minded idealists who expected
international tensions to be resolved through open negotiations marked by goodwill, Morgenthau
set out an approach that emphasised power over morality. Indeed, morality was portrayed as
something that should be avoided in policymaking. In Morgenthau’s account, every political action is
directed towards keeping, increasing or demonstrating power. The thinking is that policies based on
morality or idealism can lead to weakness – and possibly the destruction or domination of a state by
a competitor. In this sense pursuing the national interest is ‘amoral’ – meaning that it is not subject
to calculations of morality.

Rather than a state’s decisions and actions being based on human nature, they are arrived at via a
simple formula. First, all states are constrained by existing in an international anarchic system (this is
the structure). Second, any course of action they pursue is based on their relative power when
measured against other states. So, Waltz offered a version of realism that recommended that
theorists examine the characteristics of the international system for answers rather than delve into
flaws in human nature. In doing so, he sparked a new era in IR theory that attempted to use social
scientific methods rather than political theory (or philosophical) methods. The difference is that
Waltz’s variables (international anarchy, how much power a state has, etc.) can be
empirically/physically measured. Ideas like human nature are assumptions based on certain
philosophical views that cannot be measured in the same way.

Realists believe that their theory most closely describes the image of world politics held by
practitioners of statecraft. For this reason, realism, perhaps more than any other IR theory, is often
utilised in the world of policymaking – echoing Machiavelli’s desire to write a manual to guide
leaders. However, realism’s critics argue that realists can help perpetuate the violent and
confrontational world that they describe. By assuming the uncooperative and egoistic nature of
humankind and the absence of hierarchy in the state system, realists encourage leaders to act in
ways based on suspicion, power and force. Realism can thus be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
More directly, realism is often criticised as excessively pessimistic, since it sees the confrontational
nature of the international system as inevitable. However, according to realists, leaders are faced
with endless constraints and few opportunities for cooperation. Thus, they can do little to escape
the reality of power politics. For a realist, facing the reality of one’s predicament is not pessimism –
it is prudence. The realist account of international relations stresses that the possibility of peaceful
change, or in fact any type of change, is limited. For a leader to rely on such an idealistic outcome
would be folly.

Perhaps because it is designed to explain repetition and a timeless pattern of behaviour, realism was
not able to predict or explain a major recent transformation of the international system: the end of
the Cold War between the United States of America (US) and the Soviet Union in 1991. When the
Cold War ended, international politics underwent rapid change that pointed to a new era of limited
competition between states and abundant opportunities for cooperation. This transformation
prompted the emergence of an optimistic vision of world politics that discarded realism as ‘old
thinking’. Realists are also accused of focusing too much on the state as a solid unit, ultimately
overlooking other actors and forces within the state and also ignoring international issues not
directly connected to the survival of the state. For example, the Cold War ended because ordinary
citizens in Soviet-controlled nations in Eastern Europe decided to rebel against existing power
structures. This rebellion swept from one country to another within the Soviet Union’s vast empire,
resulting in its gradual collapse between 1989 and 1991. Realism’s toolbox did not and does not
account for such events: the actions of ordinary citizens (or international organisations, for that
matter) have no major part in its calculations. This is due to the state-centred nature of the thinking
that realism is built upon. It views states as solid pool balls bouncing around a table – never stopping
to look inside each pool ball to see what it comprises and why it moves the way it does. Realists
recognise the importance of these criticisms, but tend to see events such as the collapse of the
Soviet Union as exceptions to the normal pattern of things.

Many critics of realism focus on one of its central strategies in the management of world affairs – an
idea called ‘the balance of power’. This describes a situation in which states are continuously making
choices to increase their own capabilities while undermining the capabilities of others. This
generates a ‘balance’ of sorts as (theoretically) no state is permitted to get too powerful within the
international system. If a state attempts to push its luck and grow too much, like Nazi Germany in
the 1930s, it will trigger a war because other states will form an alliance to try to defeat it – that is,
restore a balance. This balance of power system is one of the reasons why international relations is
anarchic. No single state has been able to become a global power and unite the world under its
direct rule. Hence, realism talks frequently about the importance of flexible alliances as a way of
ensuring survival. These alliances are determined less by political or cultural similarities among
states and more by the need to find fair-weather friends, or ‘enemies of my enemy’. This may help
to explain why the US and the Soviet Union were allied during the Second World War (1939–1945):
they both saw a similar threat from a rising Germany and sought to balance it. Yet within a couple of
years of the war ending, the nations had become bitter enemies and the balance of power started to
shift again as new alliances were formed during what became known as the Cold War (1947–1991).
While realists describe the balance of power as a prudent strategy to manage an insecure world,
critics see it as a way of legitimising war and aggression. Despite these criticisms, realism remains
central within the field of IR theory, with most other theories concerned (at least in part) with
critiquing it. For that reason, it would be inappropriate to write a textbook on IR theory without
covering realism in the first chapter. In addition, realism continues to offer many important insights
about the world of policymaking due to its history of offering tools of statecraft to policymakers.

Conclusion

Realism is a theory that claims to explain the reality of international politics. It emphasises the
constraints on politics that result from humankind’s egoistic nature and the absence of a central
authority above the state. For realists, the highest goal is the survival of the state, which explains
why states’ actions are judged according to the ethics of responsibility rather than by moral
principles. The dominance of realism has generated a significant strand of literature criticising its
main tenets. However, despite the value of the criticisms, which will be explored in the rest of this
book, realism continues to provide valuable insights and remains an important analytical tool for
every student of International Relations.