Chapter 2 Revision Guide

Neorealism is a parody of science: it is overly parsimonious, unfalsifiable and does not adequately theorize international politics and key concepts such as polarity and power.
The decline of neorealism since the end of the Cold War has resulted in renewed interest in classical realist thinkers.
Classical realists, such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, Von Clausewitz and Hans Morgenthau, have been interested in questions of order, justice and change at domestic, regional and international levels across 2500 years.
Classical realists have a holistic understanding of politics that recognizes the close relationship of the domestic and the international, and the role of ethics and community. They recognize that communal bonds are fragile and they regard history as cyclical.
This chapter explores the work of Thucydides and Hans Morgenthau. Their writings have many similarities, especially in their appreciation of the importance of community, change and the role of theory, that arise from their shared tragic vision of world politics.
Classical realists do not make a strong distinction between the domestic world and the anarchical realm of world politics as neo-realists such as Waltz, for example, do. They see all politics as an expression of the same human drives and domestic and international communities as characterized by similar processes.

Thucydides sees the cohesiveness of community as central in maintaining order and restraint in international relations as well as in domestic politics.

Morgenthau too recognized the role of common standards of ‘culture and politeness’ in shaping the variation of order both in international and domestic relations. What follows is that classical realists view more variation in order and stability within domestic and international systems than they do between them.

On balance of power, Thucydides appreciated the importance of alliances but, against neorealists, did not see them as effective deterrents of war but rather as potential provokers of conflict.
Morgenthau saw balance of power as a ubiquitous social phenomenon but recognized that it has contradictory implications in international relations depending on the historical context. Order ultimately rests on strength of community for classical realists.
Contemporary realists emphasize interest in terms of power, rather than justice as the priority of state actors.
By contrast, classical realists emphasize the role of justice as the foundation of community. Thucydides’ writing emphasized the tensions between but also the mutually constitutive relationship of interest and justice.
Morgenthau’s understanding of interest and justice was influenced by his distinction between theory and practice and his conceptualisation of power: the strategies of a leader must take into account the intangible qualities of influence, such as the role of ethics and justice.
For classical realists justice is important for two reasons: because it is the key to influence how others understand and respond to you and because it provides a conceptual framework on which actors construct their interests.
Change, for neorealists, takes place when the number of poles changes in the international system. For classical realists, change is perceived more widely: it is associated with modernization, which brings about shifts in identities and discourses, and hence conceptions of security.
Thucydides narrated how wealth brings about increasing tendencies towards unilateral acquisition and use of force. Morgenthau emphasized the process of transference of private impulses onto the state through modernization.
In restoring order following wars, both Thucydides and Morgenthau looked for a combination of old and new in values and in government. Both regard this tension to be central to modernity, where attempts must be made to accommodate changes while limiting their destructive potential.
In relations between states, Thucydides advocated the turn to more proportional and restrained forms of hēgemonia and defence of internal order through means such as religion. Morgenthau noted the crusading moral forces in the Soviet Union and US, pointing out that deterrence in such context would not be enough but rather restraint was needed by leaders.
Thucydides emphasized the context dependence of foreign policy actions. Like Morgenthau after him, Thucydides denied the possibility of episteme, whereby general laws and predictions can be deduced from first principles. Instead, theory – theōrōs – for classical Greeks was associated with interpretive description of events and processes.
Morgenthau develops theoretical frameworks to allow decision-makers to deal with individual problems. In the classical realist sense, it is history, which is the vehicle for tragedy and the teacher of wisdom.
Case study. From a classical realist perspective the Iraq War can be seen as a tragedy in the Greek sense. Three interrelated themes are central to this notion:

1. Hubris: Derivative of the USA’s power and success during the post-Cold War era of unilateralism, the administration advocated Saddam Hussain’s removal rather than mere containment through sanctions.
2. Those who do not act within the community and justice formulate their interests through passion and hope rather than through reason and calculation:
The US administration assumed Iraqis would welcome ‘liberators’ and that other countries would bandwagon with their cause. In reality, the USA anticipated to increase its influence in the Middle East and, by an image of intimidation, extend its power. Further, the Pentagon’s occupation plans indicated a primary concern over the securing of oil fields, and only secondary concern for the search of WMD (which were never found).
3. Tragic consequences emerge if the choices of means stand in opposition to the values of the community. The lack of consultation with experts in the region, thus led to an inadequately planned occupation. This alienated many Iraqis, and increased US opposition. Despite attempts at regional re-stabilisation, the chaos created during the Iraq war can be seen to be intrinsically linked to continuing conflict in the region. The failure of the Iraq operation reminds us that great powers are often their own worst enemy.

The notion of tragedy captures the contradiction between the abilities of man and his propensity to destroy with violence what has been achieved. Looking for conditions of stable orders classical realists were pessimistic of the ability of the powerful to exercise self-restraint. Key theme of classical realism is that it offers prudence as an antidote to hubris.