PACS201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Hans Morgenthau, Realpolitik
17 May 2016
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When a state behaves a certain way, supposedly doing so for its own good, the french say that it is demonstrating raison d" tat, the states own reasons for its actions. The phrase also implies that right of a state to act in its own interests. Insofar as states are totally sovereign, raison d" tat is sufficient justification unto itself, legally if not morally. Realpolitik: states policies should be based on considerations of power, rather than utopian ethical ideals. Maintained that the primary national interests was the quest for national security and that this was to be achieved fundamentally through national power, goal of international politics: maximization of national power. Politics is reducible to one of the three basic goals: to keep power, to increase power, or to demonstrate power. Power is to the national leader what wealth is to the economist, or morality to the ethicist.
