Realism — meaning and intellectual precursors

Realism (Political Realism, Realpolitik): international relations are governed by self-interest, power and a state-centric worldview. Rooted in Thucydides and Sun Tzu, it crystallised in the 20th century as a reaction against idealism’s claim of a fundamental harmony of interests. Classical Realism (post-Second World War) locates conflict in human nature — E. H. Carr, Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau.

• Thucydides — History of the Peloponnesian War; the Melian Dialogue: the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. Robert Gilpin reads him as a realist of honour, greed and fear.
• Kautilya — Arthashastra; national interest and power. Roger Boesche calls him the “first great realist”; Henry Kissinger reads his blend of realpolitik with dharma as idealism plus pragmatism.
• Niccolo Machiavelli — The Prince; separates politics from morality; raison d’etat — whatever serves the state is permissible.
• Thomas Hobbes — Leviathan; the state of nature mirrors international anarchy without a sovereign; adopted later by Morgenthau and Waltz.
• E. H. Carr — The Twenty Years’ Crisis; morality is relative to power; states prioritise power when interests clash.

“Men live without other security than what their strength and their invention shall furnish them withal.”

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Classical Realism — Hans Morgenthau

Hans Morgenthau, a refugee from fascist Germany, turned realism into a theoretical framework in Politics Among Nations.

“International politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.”

Hans Morgenthau

Six Principles of Political Realism

1. Objective laws in human nature — politics runs on permanent laws; understanding them yields a rational theory of IR.
2. National interest defined as power — the “master key”; judge outcomes, not motives or ideology.
3. Interest is dynamic — interest-as-power is constant, but its content shifts with context.
4. Abstract morals cannot dictate politics — states are guided by prudence, the practical judgement of outcomes.
5. National moral aspirations are not universal morals — states cloak interest in moral language; power, not morality, drives them.
6. Autonomy of international politics — a distinct sphere of power and interest, separate from the moral, legal and economic domains.

Classification of states — via diplomacy, deterrence, balance of power

• Status-quo (the USA) · revisionist (China, Russia) · imperialist / expansionist (historical Germany).

Critiques

• Stanley Hoffmann — one-sided; ignores cooperation. Kenneth Waltz — a theory built on unpredictable human nature is unscientific. J. Ann Tickner — masculinist; neglects ethics and human security.

Thucydides’ Trap and the Melian Dialogue

• Thucydides’ Trap — tension between a status-quo power and a rising revisionist power makes conflict highly probable as the rising power disrupts the order (read onto China’s rise).
• Power supersedes justice; survival rests on strength; self-help is the only reliable strategy in anarchy.
• The Melian Dialogue — the dominant Athenians assert “might makes right” and dismiss the weaker Melians’ appeals to justice as naive. It captures the security dilemma: the tragic choice between survival and ethics.

Neo-Realism (Structural Realism) — Kenneth Waltz

Structural Realism imported the methods of modern social science (game theory, quantitative analysis), replacing Morgenthau’s normative reasoning with structural explanation. Kenneth Waltz, in Theory of International Politics, drew a market analogy: states resemble firms, aiming above all for survival; self-help governs, with no authority to enforce order.

• Anarchy as structure — no central authority; states are functionally alike, distinguished only by capabilities (power), not function.
• Ordering principle — domestic politics is hierarchic; international politics is anarchic (functionally similar, sovereign units).
• Barriers to cooperation — insecurity (intentions cannot be verified, prompting arms races) and relative gains (not whether I gain, but whether my gains outweigh others’).
• Levels of analysis — individual, domestic and international; for Waltz the systemic level is decisive and leaders are relatively unimportant because structure compels them.

Three core assumptions of neorealism The world is anarchic · sovereign states are the main actors · the distribution of capabilities is decisive — only a relative change in it transforms the system. Waltz conceded only a single structural change since Westphalia.

“In anarchy, security is the highest end. Only if survival is assured can states seek such other goals as tranquillity, profit, and power.”

Kenneth Waltz

Defensive vs Offensive Realism

Within neorealism, scholars divide over how much power a state needs for security.

• Defensive Realism (Kenneth Waltz; Jack Snyder; Stephen Van Evera) — states are security maximisers, seeking equilibrium, not hegemony; excessive power provokes balancing, and conquest is often costlier than its gains.
• Offensive Realism (John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics) — states are power maximisers, seeking regional hegemony; balancing is unreliable (states buck-pass), and potential hegemons inevitably strive to become actual ones. China’s rise will not be peaceful. Strategies: direct (war, blackmail) and indirect (buck-passing, bait and bleed, bloodletting).

Waltz held bipolar systems are more stable (fewer great powers, simpler deterrence); Mearsheimer applied this to predict that post-Cold War multipolar Europe would see more crises. Robert Jervis: the security dilemma spirals through “illusory fears and unnecessary defences.”

Strategic, Neoclassical and Subaltern Realism

Strategic Realism · Thomas Schelling

• Thomas Schelling applies game theory to strategic interaction; diplomacy is rational and success-oriented, not moral. Brute force takes directly; coercion holds the power to hurt in reserve — threats are most potent when the capacity to harm is not used. Nuclear deterrence depends on the adversary’s alternatives; strategy over ethics.

Neoclassical Realism

• Synthesises neorealism and classical realism: structure sets the “broad parameters,” but domestic politics and leaders’ perceptions are intervening variables. Gideon Rose (coined the term), Stephen M. Walt (perception of power), Randall Schweller (status-quo vs revisionist interests), Fareed Zakaria (state strength), Thomas Christensen (domestic mobilisation), Steven Lobell, Norrin Ripsman and Jeffrey Taliaferro. Richer explanation of foreign policy, but less parsimonious.

Subaltern Realism

• Mohammad Ayoob reads state behaviour in the Third World: recently decolonised states face not only the security dilemma but an insecurity dilemma — internal threats from unfinished nation-building. Allied scholars: Ayesha Jalal (colonial legacies, Pakistan), Arundhati Roy (global inequality), Dipesh Chakrabarty (Provincialising Europe).

Realism — schools compared, critique, present relevance

Criticism of realism

• Over-emphasis on power and conflict; cannot explain peace. Misreads anarchy — the UN and Chapter VII collective security challenge perpetual anarchy. State-centric limits — non-state actors and transnational issues blur boundaries (Keohane and Nye on complex interdependence). Failed to predict the Soviet collapse. Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik — a degenerating paradigm (“Is everybody now a realist?”).
• Wider critiques: Martin Wight (realism, rationalism, revolutionism); Ken Booth (human security and emancipation); Andrew Linklater (global justice); constructivists (Richard Ashley, Robert Cox — structural realism is “problem-solving theory”); feminists (Tickner, V. Spike Peterson).

Contemporary relevance

• The state remains the dominant unit; interdependence has not abolished war. Russia–Ukraine — neorealists read balance of power and NATO expansion, classical realists Putin’s drive for prestige, neoclassical realists domestic politics. Indo-Pacific — a rising China balanced by India, Japan and the USA. India–Canada — a neoclassical reading (external security plus diaspora politics).