Politics Among Nations

Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace is a political sciences book by Hans Morgenthau published in 1948.

The book introduces the concept of political realism, presenting a realist view of power politics. It played a central role in preparing the United States to exercise global power in the Cold War period and to reconcile power politics with the idealistic ethics that had previously dominated American discussions about foreign relations.

Quotations

*"The statesman must think in terms of the national interest, conceived as power among other powers. The popular mind, unaware of the fine distinctions of the statesman’s thinking, reasons more often than not in the simple moralistic and legalistic terms of absolute good and absolute evil."Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Thompson, "Politics Among Nations", 6th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), p. 165.]
*"Realism maintains that universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of states (...). The individual may say for himself: "Let justice be done, even if the world must perish", but the state has no right to say so in the name of those who are in its care. (...) While the individual has a moral right to sacrifice himself in defense of such a moral principle, the state has no right to let its moral disapprobation of the infringement of (that moral principle) get in the way of successful political action, itself inspired by the moral principle of national survival."Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Thompson, "Politics Among Nations", 6th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), p. 166.]

References

*Karen Mingst and Jack Snyder. 2004. "Essential Readings in World Politics" (2nd edition). p.48