Classical Realism: Written for personal purposes, not originally academic. States behave like individuals. Considers the state only.
Hans Morgenthau Politics Among Nations
6 premises
1. States are governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. Allows for a rational theory.
2. Interest for states is power. Politics has a sphere separate from economic interest.
3. Power is universal as a concept, but its meaning depends on specific political and cultural context.
4. Inherent tension between morality and success of a state.
5. Moral aspirations of particular states not the same as universal laws of morality. States couch their goals in moralistic language, but it never works out that way.
6. Profound difference between power interest of politics and other approaches.
¨to search for the clue to foreign policy in the motives of statesmen is both futile and deceptive. It is futile because motives are the most illusive of psychological data, distorted as they are...by the interests and emotions of actor and observer alike.
Yet even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge would help us little in understanding foreign policies, and might well lead us astray judging his motives ...we can say nothing of the probability of their success” Hans Morgenthau
The Melian Dialogue by Thucydides: The Athenians during the Peloponnesian War send envoys to discuss the surrender of the Melians, who wish to remain neutral. Athenians argue that there is no justice between unequals, and the weak suffer what they must. It is necessary for a hegemon to display or exert power, even without a threat. Melians argue that overextension of power can invite retribution from Lacedaemonian league. Athens did lose the Peloponnesian War.
Machiavelli Doing Evil in Order to do Good: Prudence is the value of a politician. Hate and fear are not the same. Love must be balanced, don't become a pushover. Hate invites resistance.
¨a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.
¨it is impossible for the new prince to avoid the imputation of cruelty, owing to new states being full of dangers... proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable
¨It is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you...Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.¨
Hobbes The State of Nature and the State of War: Anarchy is the permanent political condition internationally, is suspended between individuals by the development of states in which a single ruler(s) is given monopoly on the use of force, and whose subjects agree to be bound by its laws surrendering their rights from the state of anarchy. All are equal in the state of nature because of the ability to form alliances and use strategy. The lack of order prevents progress because there is a constant fear of attack, far worse than the attack itself. This diffidence prevents development which takes time and involves trust.
Individuals are psychologically egoistic. Man is matter in motion, a physical entity which seeks to perpetuate motion, otherwise it would cease to exist. The natural law which allows only objects which can perpetuate motion to continue develops organisms which are complex enough to have interior motions, which become voluntary motions. The senses develop from experience with other motions which leave impressions. The voluntary motions from the interior develop memory of previous impressions which guide it in future sensations. Organisms' minds are developed individually. The capacity to reason in man creates a disconnect from immediate environment as we develop ideas, which form our preferences.
Structural Realism: begins with verifiable assumption of international anarchy, no world government capable of controlling all state activities. The state of anarchy is not due to selfish or flawed human nature but to structural imbalances of power among states with different capabilities. World politics revolves around hegemons, regional and polar powers. Polar powers, superpowers, create different world orders based on balance of power among states. There are unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar world orders. A bipolar order is usually considered by realists to be the most stable, as it is clear what sides there are for states to align with against. A unipolar order can lead to overextension of the world hegemon. The threat to a world order are rising powers which engage in territorial revision.
Kenny Waltz
The world, however, has not been transformed; the structure of international
politics has simply been remade by the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and
for a time we will live with unipolarity. Moreover, international politics was
not remade by the forces and factors that some believe are creating a new
world order. Those who set the Soviet Union on the path of reform were old
Soviet apparatchiks trying to right the Soviet economy in order to preserve its
position in the world. The revolution in Soviet affairs and the end of the Cold
War were not brought by democracy, interdependence or international institutions.
Instead the Cold War ended exactly as structural realism led one to
expect. As I wrote some years ago, the Cold War “is firmly rooted in the
structure of postwar international politics and will last as long as that structure
endures. So it did, and the Cold War ended only when the bipolar structure
of the world disappeared.
Structural change affects the behavior of states and the outcomes their
interactions produce. It does not break the essential continuity of international
politics. The transformation of international politics alone could do that. Transformation
however, awaits the day when the international system is no longer
populated by states that have to help themselves...States’ perennial uncertainty about their fates
presses governments to prefer relative over absolute gains...Liberal institutionalists were right to start their investigations with structural realism. Until and unless a transformation occurs, it remains
the basic theory of international politics
Stephen Walt's Alliances In a Unipolar World
An alliance (or alignment) is a formal (or informal) commitment
for security cooperation between two or more states, intended to
augment each member’s power, security, and/or influence
The essential element in a meaningful alliance is a commitment
for mutual support against some external actor(s)
The advent of unipolarity has had profound effects on the nature
of contemporary alliances
Yet there is no consensus on the overall impact that unipolarity will
have on contemporary international alliances
Some writers believe
1. unipolarity heralds the dissolution
of nato and other cold war–era alliances, whereas others predict that
2. the other major powers are likely to draw closer together in an effort to
contain the overwhelming power of the United States and
3. Medium and lesser powers will align with the United States not because
they fear U.S. power but because they are primarily concerned with
regional threats and want to use U.S. power to deal with them
Bandwagoning: Under certain circumstances, states may
choose to bandwagon with an existing threat, especially if they believe
that resistance is impossible or if they are convinced a threat can be
deflected or appeased by accommodating it
Friedberg The Future of U.S.-China Relations
For realist pessimists, the single most important feature of the PRC today is its
rising power...since the start of economic reforms in 1978, the
PRC’s gross national product (GNP) is thought to have increased by a factor of
four and, according to some estimates, it could double again by the middle of
the second decade of the twenty-first century...Given the sheer size
of its population and the rising productivity of its workers, China may one day
regain its historic position as the world’s largest economy...The combination of the speed and the magnitude of China’s growth in recent decades appears to be unprecedented.
As was true of the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, so too is China’s rapidly growing economy bringing expanding military capabilities in its train.
...throughout history, rising powers have tended to
be troublemakers, at least insofar as their more established counterparts in the
international system are concerned. This is the case, in the realists’ view, regardless of regime type
As a state’s capabilities grow, its leaders tend to define their interests more expansively and to
seek a greater degree of influence over what is going on around them. Rising
powers seek not only to secure their frontiers but to reach out beyond them
As they seek to assert themselves, rising powers are often drawn to challenge territorial boundaries, international institutional arrangements, and hierarchies of prestige that were put in place when they were relatively weak
the United States is vastly more powerful than China
there is a significant probability that China’s power will not continue to grow at anything resembling the pace of the past two decades. The process of economic expansion, in particular, may well be disrupted by domestic social and political turbulence
realist optimists argue that the United States is now so overwhelmingly powerful that its position is essentially unassailable
Instead of balancing against American power, most other states will seek to jump on the U.S.
bandwagon, or at least to stay well out of its way. Moreover, the very size of
the power gap separating the United States from the rest of the world is so
large as to diminish the prospects for misperception or miscalculation.
for a time we will live with unipolarity. Moreover, international politics was
not remade by the forces and factors that some believe are creating a new
world order. Those who set the Soviet Union on the path of reform were old
Soviet apparatchiks trying to right the Soviet economy in order to preserve its
position in the world. The revolution in Soviet affairs and the end of the Cold
War were not brought by democracy, interdependence or international institutions.
Instead the Cold War ended exactly as structural realism led one to
expect. As I wrote some years ago, the Cold War “is firmly rooted in the
structure of postwar international politics and will last as long as that structure
endures. So it did, and the Cold War ended only when the bipolar structure
of the world disappeared.
Structural change affects the behavior of states and the outcomes their
interactions produce. It does not break the essential continuity of international
politics. The transformation of international politics alone could do that. Transformation
however, awaits the day when the international system is no longer
populated by states that have to help themselves...States’ perennial uncertainty about their fates
presses governments to prefer relative over absolute gains...Liberal institutionalists were right to start their investigations with structural realism. Until and unless a transformation occurs, it remains
the basic theory of international politics
Stephen Walt's Alliances In a Unipolar World
An alliance (or alignment) is a formal (or informal) commitment
for security cooperation between two or more states, intended to
augment each member’s power, security, and/or influence
The essential element in a meaningful alliance is a commitment
for mutual support against some external actor(s)
The advent of unipolarity has had profound effects on the nature
of contemporary alliances
Yet there is no consensus on the overall impact that unipolarity will
have on contemporary international alliances
Some writers believe
1. unipolarity heralds the dissolution
of nato and other cold war–era alliances, whereas others predict that
2. the other major powers are likely to draw closer together in an effort to
contain the overwhelming power of the United States and
3. Medium and lesser powers will align with the United States not because
they fear U.S. power but because they are primarily concerned with
regional threats and want to use U.S. power to deal with them
Bandwagoning: Under certain circumstances, states may
choose to bandwagon with an existing threat, especially if they believe
that resistance is impossible or if they are convinced a threat can be
deflected or appeased by accommodating it
Friedberg The Future of U.S.-China Relations
For realist pessimists, the single most important feature of the PRC today is its
rising power...since the start of economic reforms in 1978, the
PRC’s gross national product (GNP) is thought to have increased by a factor of
four and, according to some estimates, it could double again by the middle of
the second decade of the twenty-first century...Given the sheer size
of its population and the rising productivity of its workers, China may one day
regain its historic position as the world’s largest economy...The combination of the speed and the magnitude of China’s growth in recent decades appears to be unprecedented.
As was true of the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, so too is China’s rapidly growing economy bringing expanding military capabilities in its train.
...throughout history, rising powers have tended to
be troublemakers, at least insofar as their more established counterparts in the
international system are concerned. This is the case, in the realists’ view, regardless of regime type
As a state’s capabilities grow, its leaders tend to define their interests more expansively and to
seek a greater degree of influence over what is going on around them. Rising
powers seek not only to secure their frontiers but to reach out beyond them
As they seek to assert themselves, rising powers are often drawn to challenge territorial boundaries, international institutional arrangements, and hierarchies of prestige that were put in place when they were relatively weak
the United States is vastly more powerful than China
there is a significant probability that China’s power will not continue to grow at anything resembling the pace of the past two decades. The process of economic expansion, in particular, may well be disrupted by domestic social and political turbulence
realist optimists argue that the United States is now so overwhelmingly powerful that its position is essentially unassailable
Instead of balancing against American power, most other states will seek to jump on the U.S.
bandwagon, or at least to stay well out of its way. Moreover, the very size of
the power gap separating the United States from the rest of the world is so
large as to diminish the prospects for misperception or miscalculation.
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