Editing International relations (section)

===Realism===
{{Main|Realism (international relations)}}

The realist framework of international relations rests on the fundamental assumption that the international state system is an [[anarchy]], with no overarching power restricting the behaviour of sovereign states. As a consequence, states are engaged in a continuous power struggle, where they seek to augment their own military capabilities, economic power, and diplomacy relative to other states; this in order to ensure the protection of their political system, citizens, and vital interests.<ref>{{Citation|last=Korab-Karpowicz|first=W. Julian|title=Political Realism in International Relations|date= May 24, 2017 |orig-date= Jul 26, 2010 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/realism-intl-relations/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2021-04-12}}</ref> The realist framework further assumes that states act as unitary, rational actors, where central decision makers in the state apparatus ultimately stand for most of the state's foreign policy decisions.<ref>{{cite web|last=Morganthau|first=Hans|url=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm |title= Six principles of political realism |publisher=Mount Holyoke College |work=Politics Among Nations: The struggle for Power and Peace|year=1978|location=New York|pages=4–15|access-date=2016-02-24|archive-date=2019-12-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222202705/https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> International organizations are in consequence merely seen as tools for individual states used to further their own interests, and are thought to have little power in shaping states' foreign policies on their own.<ref name=":1" />

The realist framework is traditionally associated with the analysis of power politics, and has been used to analyze the conflicts between states in the early European state system; the causes of the [[World War I|First]] and [[World War II|Second World Wars]], as well as the behavior of the [[United States]] and the [[Soviet Union]] during the [[Cold War]]. In settings such as these, the realist framework carries great interpretative insights in explaining how the military and economic power struggles of states lead to larger armed conflicts.

====History of realism====
''[[History of the Peloponnesian War]]'', written by [[Thucydides]], is considered a foundational text of the realist school of political philosophy.<ref>{{cite book|last=Norris|first=Cochrane, Charles|title=Thucydides and the Science of History|date=1929|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=179}}</ref> There is debate over whether Thucydides himself was a realist; Richard Ned Lebow has argued that seeing Thucydides as a realist is a misinterpretation of a more complex political message within his work.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lebow|first=Richard Ned|date=2001|title=Thucydides the Constructivist|journal=The American Political Science Review|volume=95|issue=3|pages=547–560|jstor=3118232|doi=10.1017/S0003055401003112|s2cid=144587521}}</ref> Amongst others, philosophers like [[Machiavelli]], [[Hobbes]], and [[Rousseau]] are considered to have contributed to the realist philosophy.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Baylis|first1=John|title=The globalization of world politics: An introduction to international relations|date=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0198782636|page= 149 |url=https://archive.org/details/globalizationofw0002unse/page/149|edition=2nd|last2=Smith |first2=Steve}}</ref> However, while their work may support realist doctrine, it is not likely that they would have classified themselves as realists in this sense. Political realism believes that politics, like society, is governed by objective laws with roots in [[human nature]]. 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, persons 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.

Major theorists include [[E. H. Carr]], [[Robert Gilpin]], [[Charles P. Kindleberger]], [[Stephen D. Krasner]], [[Hans Morgenthau]], [[Kenneth Waltz]], [[Robert Jervis]], [[Stephen Walt]], and [[John Mearsheimer]].