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Political Realism and Foreign Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Robert W. Tucker
Robert W. Tucker
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

A full understanding of political realism is needed, Kenneth Thompson writes in the preface of his recent study, “if American statesmen and scholars are to advance public understanding and awareness of the realities of international life and close the gap between what leaders feel and do and what the people imagine they do. Therefore the central aim I have had in mind is a careful explication, first, of the origins of political realism as an approach to American foreign policy, and, secondly, of its implications for the major unsolved problems of America's relations with the rest of the world” (p. vii).

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , April 1961 , pp. 461 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1961

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References

1 Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince, Library, Modern ed., New York, 1940. chap, XV, p. 56.Google Scholar

2 Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations, 3rd ed., New York, 1960, p. 4.Google Scholar

3 I will not strain the point by adding “or a Dean Acheson.” Mr. Thompson does not include Mr. Acheson among his list of contemporary realists.

4 The implication that it does follow, that realist theory leads to successful policy, may be seen in the following statement: “… liberal or conservative leaders whose foreign policies have been most successful can more accurately be termed realists. They have succeeded because their liberal or conservative policies were founded on a realistic estimate of the perennial factors in the historical and political situation” (p. 88).

5 It is rather difficult to see either the logical or the psychological basis for this assertion. Logically, there is no incompatibility between the recognition that other nations judge their self-interests by similar criteria and the desire to pursue a course of action which nevertheless denies the self-interests of others. Psychologically it may be precisely the awareness that others apply similar criteria in determining their interests which accentuates the temptation to conceal real designs for aggrandizement.

6 This is a purely hypothetical statement. It does not follow that nations have essentially similar interests or that they apply similar criteria in determining those interests. And even if this condition were to obtain, it does not follow that conflict among nations would be avoided. Nations might still believe that in certain circumstances the preservation of their vital interests is incompatible with the vital interests of others.

7 A vivid example of this may be seen in the varied response Mr. Thompson's realists have given to the imposing dilemmas presented by nuclear-missile weapons. Thus George Kennan and Herbert Butterfield have endorsed a position that is tantamount to one of nuclear self-abnegation. Professor Butterfield has gone so far as to urge diat we “declare that the hydrogen bomb is an unspeakable atrocity, not to be used in any war, and not even to be the basis of any form of threat” (International Conflict in the Twentieth Century, New York, 1960, p. 95). On the other side, Reinhold Niebuhr has assailed the “nuclear pacifists” and has insisted that although the use of the hydrogen bomb might well mean our “moral annihilation,” its employment as a deterrent threat against aggression—and consequently its possible use—is nevertheless justified. This controversy is not due simply to a failure of one side to comprehend the current realities of international life. It has arisen largely because men—professed realists—have responded differently to these realities.

8 Arnold Wolfers has examined and clarified the general issues raised by the above remarks in his articles, “Statesmanship and Moral Choice,” World Politics, I, No. 2 (January 1949), pp. 175–95, “‘National Security’ as an Ambiguous Symbol,” Political Science Quarterly, LXVII, No. 4 (December 1952), pp. 481–502.

9 Lippmann, Walter, Essays in the Public Philosophy, Boston, 1955, p. 25.Google Scholar

10 To be sure, it has been asserted that in certain circumstances negotiation may indeed become an end in itself. Given the risks entailed by nuclear war, almost any method of resolving differences is considered preferable to settlement by force of arms and almost any kind of settlement is considered preferable to the alternative of war. But the persuasiveness of this view largely depends upon acceptance of the alternatives it poses. No solution at all of conflicting interests, and at the same time no resort to force, may still prove preferable to a clearly undesirable solution. Once again, the critical issue is the possibility of a situation that appears to exclude both true negotiation and war.