The Importance Of Realism In International Relations

Realism is an international relations theory with a lineage that dates back to thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli and Thucydides (Forde). Because the conditions for international relations are inherently anarchic, with neither hierarchical power nor expectation of reciprocity to enforce cooperation between actors, realists insist that the sole responsibility of the state must simply be self-preservation. As foreign policy specialist George Kennan wrote, “other criteria, sadder, more limited, more practical must be allowed to prevail” in spite of morality.

One of the security challenges facing the United States (US) is the US and North Korea relations. The US policy toward North Korea is diplomatic yet firm. North Korea is our longest standing adversary. Policy toward North Korea is one of the most enduring foreign policy challenges. In this essay I will discuss the security challenge of U.S. and North Korea, the theory of international relation, realism, how it illuminates this challenge and how the instruments of

Since the 1950’s North Korea has posed as dangerous threat to The United States and its allies. With North Korea development of Nuclear arms and its consistent hostile rhetoric and actions towards the United States. With the North Korea’s development of a long range ICBM, more now than ever the United States has been put into a position where its and many of its

Realism is a theory which believes that sovereign states are the primary actors in the international system. It also believes that the international system has always been anarchic due to the nature of states not trusting each other and each state seeking to gain or maximize its own power capability. The Realist approach to the Cold War was also that of an “anarchical constitutive” and had seen the Cold War as something that was not out of the ordinary. The realists believed that states are always competing to maximize their own power, “the basic premise of its understanding is that the Cold War was not historically unique. the Cold War rather reflected in general terms the ongoing logic of inter-state conflict derived from the anarchical constitutive nature of the international system, and the ‘power maximization’ policies of states” R.Saull (2001:7).

Realism is a theory that depicts world politics as a ceaseless repetitive struggle for power. In other words, political realism seeks to explain international relations between states in terms of power. Realist “views that nation-state as the most important actor…because it answers to no higher authority;” in other words, it is an anarchic system (Kegley, 27). Some traits of realism are that states are sovereign, non-cooperation among states, and the exclusion if morality in policies.

Realism is one of the oldest and most popular theories in International Relations. It offers a perspective about competition and power, and can be used to explain the actions between states. An example of realism is the U.S. reaction – or lack thereof – during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Realism has dominated international relations theory since emerging in the 1930’s. The era of state conflict lasting from the 1930’s to the end of the cold war in 1947, proved the perfect hostile environment to fit the largely pessimistic view of world politics. While many aspects of realism are still alive in International Relations today; including the dominant presence of states, intrinsic of war and the decentralised government. However, realism only reaches so far in explaining and creating a structure for international relations. Whilst the strengths of the theory lie in its pragmatic approach to power politics and conflict. However, the realist view is weakened by changes in the way that conflict is fought, the ineffectiveness of the balance of power model and the increasing global and interconnected world. Thus, using realism as a structure to explain international relations today is to some extent, a theory of the past.

Since International Relations has been academically studied Realism has been the dominant theory of world politics. The theory’s inability to explain the end of the Cold War, however, brought strength and momentum to the Liberalism theory. Today Realism and Liberalism are the two major paradigms of International Relations. The aforementioned theories focus on the international system and the external factors that can lead to two phenomena - conflict and cooperation. Realism believes that as a result of anarchy and the security dilemma, conflict is inevitable. Liberalism argues that this conflict can be overcome through cooperative activities amongst states and international organizations. This paper will explore as well as compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of both theories. It will also debate which of the two theories is more valuable in the

On the realist theory of International Relations, the basic assumption of this theory is that states in their foreign affairs, must pursue power, and ensure that they act rationally with the most appropriate step that will be taken to perpetuate the life of the state in a hostile and threatening environment. A key principle of realist theory is that of survival and it could be argued that in the domestic politics governments create and enforce laws to

When discussing whether or not a nation-state should enter a war and when to do so, three beliefs on foreign policy and war exist. The three different diplomatic stances are that of pacifism, just war theory, and political realism. Political realism, or realpolitik as it is often referred to, is the belief war should only occur when it is in the national interest of the particular nation-state. Henry Kissinger, a political realist, in his book Diplomacy argues that realism is the only logical answer. Just war theorists, along with pacifists, on the other hand oppose these arguments and therefore critique of this form of diplomatic action. To construct a valid understanding of the realist perspective the arguments Kissinger puts forth in

The theory of Realism provides reasons why North Korea has positioned the nuclear weapon debate at the centre of its policy. One of the fundamental assumptions of Realism is in fact that each state, embedded in an international order characterized by a condition of antagonism, attempt to pursue its

On the other hand, they also share similar qualities and characteristics. Both theories realize how our world is more than capable of being a dangerous place and we should not assume we are safe at all times. Military power is recognized as being important and pragmatic, and it is understood this power can easily be abused, as much as it can be functional. Another common realization between idealist and realist approaches is because there is no absolute government having power over all countries, countries can essentially do whatever they want to each other, which includes inflicting terror, because there really isn’t anything stopping them.

The world we live in has always been plagued by wars and conflicts. Before the 20th century, many conflicts were amongst people residing in the same country or vicinity, such as the Civil War in the United States. Over the last 100 years, the world has seen many conflicts go international, beginning with the first World War, and continuing into today with the Afghan and Iraq War. However, when World War I occurs, this is the first time that a conflict has truly gone global in what we consider the modern era. Through this event, we begin to view international relations through the theory of Idealism, led by Norman Angell and Woodrow Wilson. Idealism suggests that human nature is fundamentally good and people will always do the right thing. In response to this a new theory, Realism, emerged. Led by Edward Carr, Realism believed that human nature is fundamentally bad, and people are only looking out for themselves. A third reaction to the ideas of both Idealism and Realism was Marxism, led by Karl Marx. Marxism believed that the reason the international system was so unstable was because of the economy and the divisions between two classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. All of these theories have tried to come up with solutions on how to create a more peaceful international environment but none have succeeded. The way to attain necessary conditions for cooperation in international politics, is to create a mixture of all three theories, in a way that shows how they

In a world with many nations. Conflict seems to rise at any given moment. With the world and humanity evolving in a rapid rate. Technology advanced like nothing we have seen in the past centuries. The development of weapons of mass destruction. After two major world wars you would think we found world peace. Turns out that is not the case. With North Korea development of Nuclear threats and constant standoff between the two nations, North Korea and the United States of America. We are going to look at how these two major theories of international relations, realist and liberalist and why these two play a major role in the international relations.

Realism came about in post-1930s with the failure of the ‘peace through law approach’. The failure of the League of Nations meant there was a decline in the Liberalist International relations theory. Key Liberalist thinkers such as Jackson and Sorensen described liberalism as being optimistic about human nature, that people were capable of moral progress and also liberalist treat states as individual units. The failure of state and human cooperation that led to World War One and Two had deeply undermined the liberalist theory, this led to the importance of the Realist theory who question the optimism of human nature. Realist are often pessimistic on human nature, (Jackson and Sorensen, 2007) argued ‘life is constantly at risk, and nobody can be confident about his or her security and survival for any reasonable length of time…’ Key Realist thinker Thomas Hobbes also argued that the world consists of self-interested individuals and that life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Realism is more useful than liberalism today as we see mass conflict and a lack of trust between humans and states, such as the Islamic State preforming barbaric acts against its own civilians, or the September attacks 2001 which supports the Realist theory that ‘life is constantly at risk’. In this essay, Neo-Realism will be discussed. Key thinker of Neo-Realism has been Kenneth Waltz. His aim was to try and explain why wars are caused in a more systematic