a realist walks into a bar realist walks into a bar and orders a half-empty glass of vodka the term realism I think gets under people's skin it's hard to you know compete with a paradigm or perspective that that's called realism so then you become an idealist right the idealists would walk into the bar in order a half-full glass of vodka realism is a theory essentially about power and security States relentlessly seek power and security because they exist in a self-help system you seek secure you seek prestige and most of all reels would say you seek
autonomy because in a world where you can never trust anyone you don't want to be interdependent liberals believe in interdependence thinks it leads to peace but realist tend to be very skeptical about interdependence cuz who wants to be mutually dependent in a world that's very dangerous essentially you know today's friend could be tomorrow's enemy and to the extent that that's true you never know who's going to be aligned against you down the road or who's making plans against you now so you can never have enough power like how much is enough power I don't know
you know who's gonna be lined up against me in ten years realists don't believe in sort of utopian muddle-headed schemes that would provide a perpetual peace in the world based on some notion of a natural harmony of interests among states instead realist see the world in terms of tragedy and evil and essentially like the best you can hope for is that you know you people choose the lesser evil and try to be as good as they can be in an evil world you know I guess the bottom line is that you know realists may not
be angels but in the real world angels often turn out to brutes because you know if you're moralizing crusading saying you know we don't like your human rights policies and we don't you know we don't like your regime the way it's not Democratic enough it's not liberal enough well then you're going to get involved everywhere and the problem with promoting democracy is it doesn't work you know first of all and second of all you know it almost always leads to a quagmire again there is no natural harmony of interests in the world realists understand that
so you just have to live with diversity and I think liberals don't understand that most of American wars have been particularly since the end of the Cold War I've been all about promoting democracy and human rights and liberals would actually say that the only just war is one that promotes human rights whereas a realist would say the only just war is one that promotes the national interest and if there are no threats in the environment well then Yuri Trench so essentially you know if I had to give one sort of you know view of what
how realism sees the world it would be sort of a Hobbesian war of all against all in a state of nature the state of nature of meaning there is no 911th it's just everyone out for themselves which doesn't mean that war always occurs it just means that the danger of war is always lurking in the background of all international politics
