CLASSICAL REALISM:

MORGENTHAU
PROFESORA: MIRIAM DERMER
POLITICS AMONG NATIONS

• OBJECTIVE OF THE BOOK: detect and understand the forces that

determine political relations among nations, and to comprehend the ways in
which those forces act upon each other and upon international political
relations and institutions
• HYPOTHESIS: power and peace are the main concepts in international
politics
MAIN CONCEPTS
• Power: we mean man’s control over the minds and actions of other men, p. 30.
• Political power: mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the
latter and the people at large, p. 30.

• Force: actual exercise of physical violence, p. 31

• Nation: is an abstraction from a number of individuals who have certain characteristics in common,
and it is these characteristics that make them members of the same nation, p. 115.

• National morale: the degree of determination with which a nation supports the foreign policies of its
government in peace or war, p. 149.

• Balance of power: an actual state of affairs in which power is distributed among several nations
with approximate equality, p. 183.
6 LAWS OF REALISM
1. Politics are governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. for realism, theory consists in
ascertaining facts and giving the meaning through reason

2. Main signpost: concept of interest defined in terms of power. Link between reason and facts. Motives and ideology:
fallacious. Important about political leaders: their intelligence to comprehend the essentials of foreign policy, and
their capacity to translate that comprehension in political action. Rational foreign policy: good foreign policy

3. Key concept of interest defined as power in an objective category which is universally valid. Balance of power:
perennial element of all pluralistic societies.

4. Political Realism (PR) is aware of the moral significance of political action. PR is also aware of the tension btw
moral command and the requirements of successful political action. Moral principles cannot be applied in their
abstract universal formulation, rather they must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place. No
political morality without prudence (political consequences, prudence is the supreme virtue in politics).

5. PR refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe.
6. The difference btw PR and other schools of thought is real, and it’s profound.
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND THE
STRUGGLE FOR POWER
• International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power, p. 29.
• Whatever the material objectives of a foreign policy, such as the acquisition of sources of raw
materials, the control of sea lanes, or territorial changes, they always entail control of the actions of
others through influence over their minds, p. 33

• The political objective of war itself in not per se the conquest of territory and the annihilation of enemy
armies, but a change in the mind of the enemy which will make him yield to the will of the victor, p. 34

• Political history, then, becomes a succession of scientific problems capable of scientific solution-but
most unreasonably handled by an ignorant and impassioned humanity.
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND THE
STRUGGLE FOR POWER
• All politics, domestic and international, reveals three basic patterns; that is, all
political phenomena can be reduced to one of three basic types. A political policy
seeks either to 1. Keep power, 2. To increase power, or to 3. Demonstrate power.

1. not changing the distribution of power in its favor pursues a status quo
2. increase power through reversal of existing power relations (imperialism)
3. demonstrate power for the purpose of maintaining or increasing (policy of prestige)
NATIONAL POWER

• Elements of National Power: Geography, Natural resources (food, raw

materials), Industrial capacity, Military preparedness (Technology,
Leadership, Quantity and Quality of armed forces), Population (distribution,
trends), National character, National morale, The Quality of diplomacy, The
Quality of government (balance btw resources and policy, balance among
resources, popular support).
LIMITATIONS OF NATIONAL POWER: THE
BALANCE OF POWER
• Two main patterns of the balance of power: Direct opposition (the BoP
results directly from the desire of either nation to see its policies prevail over
the policies of the other), The Pattern of Competition, p. 190.

• Different methods of the Balance of power “the balancing process can be

carried on either by diminishing the weight of the heavier scale or by
increasing the weight of the lighter one”, p. 194.
LIMITATIONS OF NATIONAL POWER, INTERNATIONAL
MORALITY AND WORLD PUBLIC OPINION

• “Moral rules do not permit certain policies to be considered at all from the point of view
of expediency”, p. 225

• “Moral rules operate within the consciences of individual men. Government by clearly
identifiable men, who can be held personally accountable for their acts, is therefore the
precondition for the existence of an effective system of international ethics”, p. 239.

• “The defense of human rights cannot be consistently applied in foreign policy because it
can and must come in conflict with other interests that may be more important in a
particular instance”, p. 248.
THE PROBLEM OF PEACE

• “Our investigation to the problem of international peace has left us with two conclusions: no
attempt to solve the problem of international peace by limiting the national aspirations for
power has succeeded, and none could have succeeded under the conditions of the modern state
system”, p. 333.

• “We have seen that international peace cannot be preserved through the limitation of national
sovereignty, and we found the reasons for this failure in the very nature relations among
nations. We concluded that international peace through the transformation of the present
society of sovereign nations into a world state is unattainable under the moral, social and
political conditions prevailing in the world in our time, p. 361.
THE PROBLEM OF PEACE: DIPLOMACY

• Method of establishing the preconditions for permanent peace: peace trough acommodation its
instrument is The Diplomacy, p. 361

• 4 tasks of diplomacy: 1. must determine its objectives in the light of the power actually and
potentially available for the pursuit of these objectives. 2. Diplomacy must assess the objectives of
other nations and the power actually and potentially available for the pursuit of these objectives, 3.
Must determine to what extent these different objectives are compatible with each other, 4. Must
employ the means suited to the pursuit of its objectives, pp. 361-262.

• Means of the disposal of diplomacy are three: persuasion, compromise and the threat of force, p.
363.
THANK YOU!