Machiavelli — 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, and in his separation of politics from ethics. He thereby lays the foundations for modern politics. It represents the sum of the practical conditions that he believes are required to make both the individual and the country prosperous and strong.
Machiavellianism is a radical type of political realism that is applied to both domestic and international affairs. It is a doctrine which denies the relevance of morality in politics, and claims that all means moral and immoral are justified to achieve certain political ends.
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.
Thus he overturned the traditional morality. 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.
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 demoralization of Europe. 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, private and public, that created a further damage to traditional, customary ethics was invented. 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.
Thomas Hobbes — 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. 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.
He derives his notion of the state of war from his views of both human nature and the condition in which individuals exist. Anyone may at any time use force, and all must constantly be ready to counter such force with force. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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 s and s 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 and in the Kellogg-Briand Pact of outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlements of disputes. 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 s by Reinhold Niebuhr and within a few years by E. This fact, perhaps more than any theoretical argument, produced a strong realist reaction. Then, during the s and s, classical realism came under challenge of scholars who tried to introduce a more scientific approach to the study of international politics.
During the s 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.
Carr and Hans Morgenthau, as perhaps the most influential among them, have been selected for discussion here. Carr challenges idealism by questioning its claim to moral universalism and its idea of the harmony of interests.
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. Policies are not, as the idealists would have it, based on some universal norms, independent of interests of the parties involved.
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 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 Like Hobbes, Carr regards morality as constructed by the particular legal system that is enforced by a coercive power.
International moral norms are imposed on other countries by dominant nations or groups of nations that present themselves as the international community as a whole. 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. 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. Carr was a sophisticated thinker.
Thus, he acknowledges that human beings need certain fundamental, universally acknowledged norms and values, and contradicts his own argument by which he tries to deny universality to any norms or values.
To make further objections, the fact that the language of universal moral 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. 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. 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 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 s, 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 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 — 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.
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 s, 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. 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. 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.
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.
Political art requires that these two dimensions of human life, power and morality, be taken into consideration. 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 follow the Machiavellian route of completely removing ethics from politics. He suggests that, although human beings are political animals, who pursue their interests, they are moral animals. Deprived of any morality, they would descend to the level of beasts or sub-humans. Even if it is not guided by universal moral principles, political action thus has for Morgenthau a moral significance. Ultimately directed toward the objective of national survival, it also involves prudence.
All states have to rely upon their own resources to secure their interests, enforce whatever agreements they may have entered into with other states, or to maintain a desirable domestic and international order. There is no authority over the nation-state, nor, for the realist, should there be.
The implications of this refusal to recognize greater authority are important to recognize. The political realist fears centralized authority, unless that authority is derived from the power of his or her own state. The decentralization of the international system permits greater diversity than would be the case with, say, an empire. Since, however, the natural tendency of states is to increase their power, the preservation of a decentralized system must be purchased with force.
The use of force to preserve the decentralized system is regulated by a system called the balance of power. Such a system works only if the major powers agree, at least tacitly, that they agree that the preservation of state autonomy is an important objective.
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.
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. 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.
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 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.
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 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.
This describes a situation in which states are continuously making choices to increase their own capabilities while undermining the capabilities of others. If a state attempts to push its luck and grow too much, like Nazi Germany in the s, 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.
This may help to explain why the US and the Soviet Union were allied during the Second World War — : 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 — 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.
In June , the group published a document where it claimed to have traced the lineage of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, back to the prophet Muhammad. As caliph, al-Baghdadi demanded the allegiance of devout Muslims worldwide and the group and its supporters set about conducting a range of extreme and barbaric acts.
Many of these were targeted at cities in Western nations such as Melbourne, Manchester and Paris — which has led to the issue becoming a global one. Ultimately, the intent is to create an Islamic State or Caliphate in geopolitical, cultural and political terms and to deter via the use of terrorism and extreme actions Western or regional powers from interfering with this process.
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