The accumulation and development of a sufficient degree of power results in the attempt by states to utilize it to achieve or protect their long term goals or ultimate aims. Such aims can include freedom, economic prosperity, national security political and military domination and even further accumulation and exercise of power. Power does not only dictate how states behave in the international system but it also helps establish inter-state relations, regional and global hierarchies as well as state relations which makes the realist theory relevant to this question. As such, power was, is and will continue to be the currency of International politics. Arguably, one of the important aims of a sovereign state is to use its power to achieve in the International realm the protection of its lands, property, citizens, interests and every way of life from the dangers and influences passed by other actors in the International system. According to the realists war is the order of the day, there is survival of the fittest, as well as domination of super powers and therefore this and other tenets of the theory will help support the line of argument. However both liberalists and idealists might disagree as they pay little attention to the national interests on power and independent state survival because they view international relations in terms of trying to prevent war, promote democracy and free trade only to mention a few. Therefore as a line of argument, whatever the ultimate aims of International politics power is always the immediate aim (Morgenthau, 1948).
Political
realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by
objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve
society it is first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives.
The operation of these laws being impervious to our preferences, men will
challenge them only at the risk of failure.
Realism,
believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also
believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects,
however imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also,
then, in the possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and
opinion-between what is true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence
and illuminated by reason, and what is only a subjective judgment, divorced
from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice and wishful thinking.
Human
nature, in which the laws of politics have their roots, has not changed since
the classical philosophies of China, India, and Greece endeavoured to discover
these laws. Hence, novelty is not necessarily a virtue in political theory, nor
is old age a defect. The fact that a theory of politics, if there be such a
theory, has never been heard of before tends to create a presumption against,
rather than in favour of, its soundness. Conversely, the fact that a theory of
politics was developed hundreds or even thousands of years ago as was the
theory of the balance of power-does not create a presumption that it must be
outmoded and obsolete. A theory of politics must be subjected to the dual test
of reason and experience. To dismiss such a theory because it had its flowering
in centuries past is to present not a rational argument but a modernistic
prejudice that takes for granted the superiority of the present over the past.
To dispose of the revival of such a theory as a "fashion" or
"fad" is tantamount to assuming that in matters political we can have
opinions but no truths.
For
realism, theory consists in ascertaining facts and giving them meaning through
reason. It assumes that the character of a foreign policy can be ascertained
only through the examination of the political acts performed and of the
foreseeable consequences of these acts. Thus we can find out what statesmen
have actually done, and from the foreseeable consequences of their acts we can
surmise what their objectives might have been.
Yet
examination of the facts is not enough. To give meaning to the factual raw
material of foreign policy, we must approach political reality with a kind of
rational outline, a map that suggests to us the possible meanings of foreign
policy. In other words, we put ourselves in the position of a statesman who
must meet a certain problem of foreign policy under certain circumstances, and
we ask ourselves what the rational alternatives are from which a statesman may
choose who must meet this problem under these circumstances (presuming always
that he acts in a rational manner), and which of these rational alternatives
this particular statesman, acting under these circumstances, is likely to
choose. It is the testing of this rational hypothesis against the actual facts
and their consequences that gives theoretical meaning to the facts of
international politics.
The
main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the
landscape of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms
of power. This concept provides the link between reason trying to understand
international politics and the facts to be understood. It sets politics as an
autonomous sphere of action and understanding apart from other spheres, such as
economics (understood in terms of interest defined as wealth), ethics,
aesthetics, or religion. Without such a concept a theory of politics,
international or domestic, would be altogether impossible, for without it we could
not distinguish between political and nonpolitical facts, nor could we bring at
least a measure of systematic order to the political sphere.
We assume
that statesmen think and act in terms of interest defined as power, and the
evidence of history bears that assumption out. That assumption allows us to
retrace and anticipate, as it were, the steps a statesman--past, present, or
future--has taken or will take on the political scene. We look over his
shoulder when he writes his dispatches; we listen in on his conversation with
other statesmen; we read and anticipate his very thoughts. Thinking in terms of
interest defined as power, we think as he does, and as disinterested observers
we understand his thoughts and actions perhaps better than he, the actor on the
political scene, does himself.
The
concept of interest defined as power imposes intellectual discipline upon the
observer, infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics, and thus
makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible. On the side of the
actor, it provides for rational discipline in action and creates that
astounding continuity in foreign policy which makes American, British, or
Russian foreign policy appear as an intelligible, rational continuum, by and
large consistent within itself, regardless of the different motives,
preferences, and intellectual and moral qualities of successive statesmen. A
realist theory of international politics, then, will guard against two popular
fallacies: the concern with motives and the concern with ideological
preferences.
To search
for the clue to foreign policy exclusively 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, frequently beyond recognition, by
the interests and emotions of actor and observer alike. Do we really know what
our own motives are? And what do we know of the motives of others?
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. It is
true that the knowledge of the statesman's motives may give us one among many
clues as to what the direction of his foreign policy might be. It cannot give
us, however, the one clue by which to predict his foreign policies. History
shows no exact and necessary correlation between the quality of motives and the
quality of foreign policy. This is true in both moral and political terms.
We cannot
conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his foreign policies will
be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful. Judging his motives,
we can say that he will not intentionally pursue policies that are morally
wrong, but we can say nothing about the probability of their success. If we
want to know the moral and political qualities of his actions, we must know
them, not his motives. How often have statesmen been motivated by the desire to
improve the world, and ended by making it worse? And how often have they sought
one goal, and ended by achieving something they neither expected nor desired?
Neville
Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired by
good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal
power than were many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve
peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned. Yet his policies helped to
make the Second World War inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions
of men. Sir Winston Churchill's motives, on the other hand, were much less
universal in scope and much more narrowly directed toward personal and national
power, yet the foreign policies that sprang from these inferior motives were
certainly superior in moral and political quality to those pursued by his
predecessor. Judged by his motives, Robespierre was one of the most virtuous
men who ever lived. Yet it was the utopian radicalism of that very virtue that
made him kill those less virtuous than himself, brought him to the scaffold,
and destroyed the revolution of which he was a leader.
Good
motives give assurance against deliberately bad policies; they do not guarantee
the moral goodness and political success of the policies they inspire. What is
important to know, if one wants to understand foreign policy, is not primarily
the motives of a statesman, but his intellectual ability to comprehend the
essentials of foreign policy, as well as his political ability to translate
what he has comprehended into successful political action. It follows that while
ethics in the abstract judges the moral qualities of motives, political theory
must judge the political qualities of intellect, will, and action.
A realist
theory of international politics will also avoid the other popular fallacy of
equating the foreign policies of a statesman with his philosophic or political
sympathies, and of deducing the former from the latter. Statesmen, especially
under contemporary conditions, may well make a habit of presenting their
foreign policies in terms of their philosophic and political sympathies in
order to gain popular support for them. Yet they will distinguish with Lincoln
between their "official duty," which is to think and act in
terms of the national interest, and their "personal wish,"
which is to see their own moral values and political principles realized
throughout the world. Political realism does not require, nor does it condone,
indifference to political ideals and moral principles, but it requires indeed a
sharp distinction between the desirable and the possible-between what is
desirable everywhere and at all times and what is possible under the concrete
circumstances of time and place.
It stands
to reason that not all foreign policies have always followed so rational,
objective, and unemotional a course. The contingent elements of personality,
prejudice, and subjective preference, and of all the weaknesses of intellect
and will which flesh is heir to, are bound to deflect foreign policies from
their rational course. Especially where foreign policy is conducted under the
conditions of democratic control, the need to marshal popular emotions to the
support of foreign policy cannot fail to impair the rationality of foreign
policy itself. Yet a theory of foreign policy which aims at rationality must
for the time being, as it were, abstract from these irrational elements and
seek to paint a picture of foreign policy which presents the rational essence
to be found in experience, without the contingent deviations from rationality
which are also found in experience.
Deviations
from rationality which are not the result of the personal whim or the personal
psychopathology of the policy maker may appear contingent only from the vantage
point of rationality, but may themselves be elements in a coherent system of
irrationality. The conduct of the Indochina War by the United States suggests
that possibility. It is a question worth looking into whether modern psychology
and psychiatry have provided us with the conceptual tools which would enable us
to construct, as it were, a counter-theory of irrational politics, a kind of
pathology of international politics.
The
experience of the Indochina War suggests five factors such a theory might
encompass: the imposition upon the empirical world of a simplistic and a priori
picture of the world derived from folklore and ideological assumption, that
is, the replacement of experience with superstition; the refusal to correct
this picture of the world in the light of experience; the persistence in a
foreign policy derived from the misperception of reality and the use of
intelligence for the purpose not of adapting policy to reality but of
reinterpreting reality to fit policy; the egotism of the policy makers widening
the gap between perception and policy, on the one hand, and reality, on the
other; finally, the urge to close the gap at least subjectively by action, any
kind of action, that creates the illusion of mastery over a recalcitrant
reality. According to the Wall Street Journal of April 3, 1970,
"the desire to 'do something' pervades top levels of Government and may
overpower other 'common sense' advice that insists the U.S. ability to shape
events is negligible. The yen for action could lead to bold policy as
therapy."
The
difference between international politics as it actually is and a rational
theory derived from it is like the difference between a photograph and a
painted portrait. The photograph shows everything that can be seen by the naked
eye; the painted portrait does not show everything that can be seen by the
naked eye, but it shows, or at least seeks to show, one thing that the naked
eye cannot see: the human essence of the person portrayed.
Political
realism contains not only a theoretical but also a normative element. It knows
that political reality is replete with contingencies and systemic
irrationalities and points to the typical influences they exert upon foreign
policy. Yet it shares with all social theory the need, for the sake of
theoretical understanding, to stress the rational elements of political
reality; for it is these rational elements that make reality intelligible for
theory. Political realism presents the theoretical construct of a rational
foreign policy which experience can never completely achieve.
At the
same time political realism considers a rational foreign policy to be good
foreign policy; for only a rational foreign policy minimizes risks and
maximizes benefits and, hence, complies both with the moral precept of prudence
and the political requirement of success. Political realism wants the photographic
picture of the political world to resemble as much as possible its painted
portrait. Aware of the inevitable gap between good—that is, rational—foreign
policy and foreign policy as it actually is, political realism maintains not
only that theory must focus upon the rational elements of political reality,
but also that foreign policy ought to be rational in view of its own moral and
practical purposes.
Hence, it
is no argument against the theory here presented that actual foreign policy
does not or cannot live up to it. That argument misunderstands the intention of
this book, which is to present not an indiscriminate description of political
reality, but a rational theory of international politics. Far from being
invalidated by the fact that, for instance, a perfect balance of power policy
will scarcely be found in reality, it assumes that reality, being deficient in
this respect, must be understood and evaluated as an approximation to an ideal
system of balance of power.
3. Realism
assumes that its key concept of interest defined as power is an objective
category which is universally valid, but it does not endow that concept with a
meaning that is fixed once and for all. The idea of interest is indeed of the
essence of politics and is unaffected by the circumstances of time and place.
Thucydides' statement, born of the experiences of ancient Greece, that
"identity of interests is the surest of bonds whether between states or
individuals" was taken up in the nineteenth century by Lord Salisbury's
remark that "the only bond of union that endures" among nations is
"the absence of all clashing interests." It was erected into a
general principle of government by George Washington:
A small
knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of
mankind, interest is the governing principle; and that almost every man is more
or less, under its influence. Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in
particular instances, actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely
disinterested; but they are not of themselves sufficient to produce persevering
conformity to the refined dictates and obligations of social duty. Few men are
capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or
advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of
human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age and
nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of
man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the
presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.
It was
echoed and enlarged upon in our century by Max Weber's observation:
Interests
(material and ideal), not ideas, dominate directly the actions of men. Yet the
"images of the world" created by these ideas have very often served
as switches determining the tracks on which the dynamism of interests kept
actions moving.
Yet the
kind of interest determining political action in a particular period of history
depends upon the political and cultural context within which foreign policy is
formulated. The goals that might be pursued by nations in their foreign policy
can run the whole gamut of objectives any nation has ever pursued or might
possibly pursue.
The same
observations apply to the concept of power. Its content and the manner of its
use are determined by the political and cultural environment. Power may
comprise anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over man.
Thus power covers all social relationships which serve that end, from physical
violence to the most subtle psychological ties by which one mind controls
another. Power covers the domination of man by man, both when it is disciplined
by moral ends and controlled by constitutional safeguards, as in Western
democracies, and when it is that untamed and barbaric force which finds its
laws in nothing but its own strength and its sole justification in its
aggrandizement.
Political
realism does not assume that the contemporary conditions under which foreign
policy operates, with their extreme instability and the ever present threat of
large-scale violence, cannot be changed. The balance of power, for instance, is
indeed a perennial element of all pluralistic societies, as the authors of The
Federalist papers well knew; yet it is capable of operating, as it does in
the United States, under the conditions of relative stability and peaceful
conflict. If the factors that have given rise to these conditions can be
duplicated on the international scene, similar conditions of stability and
peace will then prevail there, as they have over long stretches of history
among certain nations.
What is
true of the general character of international relations is also true of the
nation state as the ultimate point of reference of contemporary foreign policy.
While the realist indeed believes that interest is the perennial standard by
which political action must be judged and directed, the contemporary connection
between interest and the nation state is a product of history, and is therefore
bound to disappear in the course of history. Nothing in the realist position
militates against the assumption that the present division of the political
world into nation states will be replaced by larger units of a quite different
character, more in keeping with the technical potentialities and the moral
requirements of the contemporary world.
The
realist parts company with other schools of thought before the all-important
question of how the contemporary world is to be transformed. The realist is
persuaded that this transformation can be achieved only through the workmanlike
manipulation of the perennial forces that have shaped the past as they will the
future. The realist cannot be persuaded that we can bring about that
transformation by confronting a political reality that has its own laws with an
abstract ideal that refuses to take those laws into account.
4.
Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is
also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements
of successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and
obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political
issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally
more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it
actually is.
Realism
maintains that universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of
states in their abstract universal formulation, but that they must be filtered
through the concrete circumstances of time and place. The individual may say
for himself: "Fiat justitia, pereat mundus (Let justice be done,
even if the world perish)," but the state has no right to say so in the
name of those who are in its care. Both individual and state must judge
political action by universal moral principles, such as that of liberty. Yet
while the individual has a moral right to sacrifice himself in defense of such
a moral principle, the state has no right to let its moral disapprobation of
the infringement of liberty get in the way of successful political action,
itself inspired by the moral principle of national survival. There can be no
political morality without prudence; that is, without consideration of the
political consequences of seemingly moral action. Realism, then, considers
prudence-the weighing of the consequences of alternative political actions-to
be the supreme virtue in politics. Ethics in the abstract judges action by its
conformity with the moral law; political ethics judges action by its political
consequences. Classical and medieval philosophy knew this, and so did Lincoln
when he said:
I do the
very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until
the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't
amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was
right would make no difference.
5.
Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular
nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes
between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All
nations are tempted-and few have been able to resist the temptation for long-to
clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of
the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing,
while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations
among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the
belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the
human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and
that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also.
The
lighthearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of
Providence is morally indefensible, for it is that very sin of pride against
which the Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets have warned rulers and
ruled. That equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to
engender the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading
frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations-in the name of moral principle,
ideal, or God himself.
On the
other hand, it is exactly the concept of interest defined in terms of power
that saves us from both that moral excess and that political folly. For if we
look at all nations, our own included, as political entities pursuing their
respective interests defined in terms of power, we are able to do justice to
all of them. And we are able to do justice to all of them in a dual sense: We
are able to judge other nations as we judge our own and, having judged them in
this fashion, we are then capable of pursuing policies that respect the
interests of other nations, while protecting and promoting those of our own.
Moderation in policy cannot fail to reflect the moderation of moral judgment.
6. The
difference, then, between political realism and other schools of thought is
real, and it is profound. However much the theory of political realism may have
been misunderstood and misinterpreted, there is no gainsaying its distinctive
intellectual and moral attitude to matters political.
Intellectually,
the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere, as the
economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintain theirs. He thinks in terms of
interest defined as power, as the economist thinks in terms of interest defined
as wealth; the lawyer, of the conformity of action with legal rules; the
moralist, of the conformity of action with moral principles. The economist
asks: "How does this policy affect the wealth of society, or a segment of
it?" The lawyer asks: "Is this policy in accord with the rules of
law?" The moralist asks: "Is this policy in accord with moral
principles?" And the political realist asks: "How does this policy
affect the power of the nation?" (Or of the federal government, of
Congress, of the party, of agriculture, as the case may be.)
The
political realist is not unaware of the existence and relevance of standards of
thought other than political ones. As political realist, he cannot but
subordinate these other standards to those of politics. And he parts company
with other schools when they impose standards of thought appropriate to other
spheres upon the political sphere. It is here that political realism takes
issue with the "legalistic-moralistic approach" to international
politics. That this issue is not, as has been contended, a mere figment of the
imagination, but goes to the very core of the controversy, can be shown from
many historical examples. Three will suffice to make the point.3
In 1939
the Soviet Union attacked Finland. This action confronted France and Great
Britain with two issues, one legal, the other political. Did that action
violate the Covenant of the League of Nations and, if it did, what
countermeasures should France and Great Britain take? The legal question could
easily be answered in the affirmative, for obviously the Soviet Union had done
what was prohibited by the Covenant. The answer to the political question depends,
first, upon the manner in which the Russian action affected the interests of
France and Great Britain; second, upon the existing distribution of power
between France and Great Britain, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and
other potentially hostile nations, especially Germany, on the other; and,
third, upon the influence that the countermeasures were likely to have upon the
interests of France and Great Britain and the future distribution of power.
France and Great Britain, as the leading members of the League of Nations, saw
to it that the Soviet Union was expelled from the League, and they were
prevented from joining Finland in the war against the Soviet Union only by
Sweden's refusal to allow their troops to pass through Swedish territory on their
way to Finland. If this refusal by Sweden had not saved them, France and Great
Britain would shortly have found themselves at war with the Soviet Union and
Germany at the same time.
The policy
of France and Great Britain was a classic example of legalism in that they
allowed the answer to the legal question, legitimate within its sphere, to
determine their political actions. Instead of asking both questions, that of
law and that of power, they asked only the question of law; and the answer they
received could have no bearing on the issue that their very existence might
have depended upon.
The second
example illustrates the "moralistic approach" to international
politics. It concerns the international status of the Communist government of
China. The rise of that government confronted the Western world with two
issues, one moral, the other political. Were the nature and policies of that
government in accord with the moral principles of the Western world? Should the
Western world deal with such a government? The answer to the first question
could not fail to be in the negative. Yet it did not follow with necessity that
the answer to the second question should also be in the negative. The standard
of thought applied to the first--the moral question—was simply to test the
nature and the policies of the Communist government of China by the principles
of Western morality. On the other hand, the second—the political question—had
to be subjected to the complicated test of the interests involved and the power
available on either side, and of the bearing of one or the other course of
action upon these interests and power. The application of this test could well
have led to the conclusion that it would be wiser not to deal with the
Communist government of China. To arrive at this conclusion by neglecting this
test altogether and answering the political question in terms of the moral
issue was indeed a classic example of the "moralistic approach" to
international politics.
The third
case illustrates strikingly the contrast between realism and the
legalistic-moralistic approach to foreign policy. Great Britain, as one of the
guarantors of the neutrality of Belgium, went to war with Germany in August
1914 because Germany had violated the neutrality of Belgium. The British action
could be justified either in realistic or legalistic-moralistic terms. That is
to say, one could argue realistically that for centuries it had -been axiomatic
for British foreign policy to prevent the control of the Low Countries by a
hostile power. It was then not so much the violation of Belgium's neutrality
per se as the hostile intentions of the violator which provided the rationale
for British intervention. If the violator had been another nation but Germany,
Great Britain might well have refrained from intervening. This is the position
taken by Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary during that period. Under
Secretary for Foreign Affairs Hardinge remarked to him in 1908: "If France
violated Belgian neutrality in a war against Germany, it is doubtful whether
England or Russia would move a finger to maintain Belgian neutrality, while if
the neutrality of Belgium was violated by Germany, it is probable that the
converse would be the case." Whereupon Sir Edward Grey replied: "This
is to the point." Yet one could also take the legalistic and moralistic
position that the violation of Belgium's neutrality per se, because of its
legal and moral defects and regardless of the interests at stake and of the
identity of the violator, justified British and, for that matter, American
intervention. This was the position which Theodore Roosevelt took in his letter
to Sir Edward Grey of January 22, 1915:
To me the
crux of the situation has been Belgium. If England or France had acted toward
Belgium as Germany has acted I should have opposed them, exactly as I now
oppose Germany. I have emphatically approved your action as a model for what
should be done by those who believe that treaties should be observed in good
faith and that there is such a thing as international morality. I take this
position as an American who is no more an Englishman than he is a German, who
endeavors loyally to serve the interests of his own country, but who also
endeavors to do what he can for justice and decency as regards mankind at large,
and who therefore feels obliged to judge all other nations by their conduct on
any given occasion.
This
realist defense of the autonomy of the political sphere against its subversion
by other modes of thought does not imply disregard for the existence and
importance of these other modes of thought. It rather implies that each should
be assigned its proper sphere and function. Political realism is based upon a
pluralistic conception of human nature. Real man is a composite of
"economic man," "political man," "moral man,"
"religious man," etc. A man who was nothing but "political
man" would be a beast, for he would be completely lacking in moral
restraints. A man who was nothing but "moral man" would be a fool, for
he would be completely lacking in prudence. A man who was nothing but
"religious man" would be a saint, for he would be completely lacking
in worldly desires.
Recognizing
that these different facets of human nature exist, political realism also
recognizes that in order to understand one of them one has to deal with it on
its own terms. That is to say, if I want to understand "religious
man," I must for the time being abstract from the other aspects of human
nature and deal with its religious aspect as if it were the only one.
Furthermore, I must apply to the religious sphere the standards of thought
appropriate to it, always remaining aware of the existence of other standards
and their actual influence upon the religious qualities of man. What is true of
this facet of human nature is true of all the others. No modern economist, for
instance, would conceive of his science and its relations to other sciences of
man in any other way. It is exactly through such a process of emancipation from
other standards of thought, and the development of one appropriate to its
subject matter, that economics has developed as an autonomous theory of the
economic activities of man. To contribute to a similar development in the field
of politics is indeed the purpose of political realism.
It is in
the nature of things that a theory of politics which is based upon such
principles will not meet with unanimous approval-nor does, for that matter,
such a foreign policy. For theory and policy alike run counter to two trends in
our culture which are not able to reconcile themselves to the assumptions and
results of a rational, objective theory of politics. One of these trends
disparages the role of power in society on grounds that stem from the
experience and philosophy of the nineteenth century; we shall address ourselves
to this tendency later in greater detail. The other trend, opposed
to the realist theory and practice of politics, stems from the very
relationship that exists, and must exist, between the human mind and the
political sphere. For reasons that we shall discuss later the human
mind in its day-by-day operations cannot bear to look the truth of politics
straight in the face. It must disguise, distort, belittle, and embellish the
truth-the more so, the more the individual is actively involved in the
processes of politics, and particularly in those of international politics. For
only by deceiving himself about the nature of politics and the role he plays on
the political scene is man able to live contentedly as a political animal with
himself and his fellow men.
Thus it is
inevitable that a theory which tries to understand international politics as it
actually is and as it ought to be in view of its intrinsic nature, rather than
as people would like to see it, must overcome a psychological resistance that
most other branches of learning need not face. A book devoted to the
theoretical understanding of international politics therefore requires a special
explanation and justification.
