What is Realism?

The political ideology of Realism does not seek peace as it's commonly understood (in which we all get along fairly happily). The key concept for Realists is "balance of power," an understanding that says the State is served best when other global players are kept in mutual check. Its language, however, is moral: Machiavelli considered the ability to convey the appearance of virtue to be an indispensable part of the statesmen’s art. Problems can arise for the Realist, however, if "the moral appeal is taken so seriously that it begins to undermine the power brokering and diplomatic horse-trading in which international politics are seen to consist." Realists don't actively seek war, but do consider it part of the natural landscape--to them, there is nothing abnormal about war.

Realists trace their history back to Thucydides, because it's always a good rhetorical move to claim that your ideology is part of a 2,000+ year-old tradition. The best example of a Realist in the last 30 years is Henry Kissinger, who regrets the “creeping idealism” in postwar presidential rhetoric about creation of New World Order. Kissinger has stated that he would “balance rivalries as old as history by striving for an equilibrium between Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc.” Thus, “What seems a damning indictment of US foreign policy—its readiness to make war against a state to which it had lent recent material as well as diplomatic support—is portrayed here as a mark of genuine statesmanship.”

Post on Militarism coming soon.

(Source is again A.J. Coates, and quotes come from his The Ethics of War.)