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Darth Wong
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Post by Darth Wong »

Steve wrote:But we have a problem in that States practicing realpolitik have an advantage over states practicing idealism, in that they're inherently more flexible: they can do whatever is needed for the interests of the State while States that let their idealism dictate to them have to follow certain courses or they betray their ideals and are reduced.
By the same reasoning, ruthless, evil people have an advantage over good people, because they strike first and without scruples. Therefore, we should all forget morality and just go with ruthless evil. BTW, this does not address my point about idealism not being any less rational than "realpolitik"; the word rational is thrown around an awful lot but not always used correctly.
One must always be realistic in the realm of international diplomacy, which is inherently amoral because States simply do not sacrifice themselves for others as, say, you or I may jump in front of a bullet meant for a friend or a family member, and neither are they inclined to act in a virtuous manner unless there is gain for them to find in the action.
Two words: foreign aid. States can and do make sacrifices for the greater good on many occasions. The fact that some people think this is a waste of time and should be eliminated does not change that fact.
This has been a truth of international diplomacy since ancient times.
So? Sneak attacks, murder, assassination, and cruelty have also been staples of international diplomacy since ancient times; do you defend those also? Please look up "appeal to tradition" in the "logic fallacies" section of your textbook.
Reading The History of the Pelpponnesian War, I saw little difference from today in the way that Athens and Sparta, plus the other Greek cities like Argos and Mantinea or even the Persians, maneuvered themselves in foreign relations.
And look how well things turned out for them in the long run.
This is not necessarily a "get out of jail free card". A State should be responsible in it's dealings with other States. And that's the difference, really, between Canada, Australia, and even the US in comparison to North Korea, Iraq, and Syria.
If "responsible" is a word for "realpolitik limited by ethical principles", I agree. If "responsible" is a word for "whatever we can safely get away with", then I disagree.
In the Great Game of International diplomacy, one must act with regard to the realities of the situation. Otherwise, you are shackling yourself while other States are free to do as they deem necessary. Such an imbalance can be very dangerous indeed.
Do not apply the self-defense paradigm universally. Unless a state is actually in peril, it is irrelevant. The assumption of a constant state of low-level warfare is self-fulfilling.
For in this contest, idealism is a luxury that cannot always be afforded, and when it presents itself to a cause, then it must be savored for it's presence. That is why we can look back with pride on the Second World War but not the First, as the former has for us memories of our soldiers preventing great horror and avenging the suffering and murder of millions, and our memories of jubilant French, Dutch, Filipino, and Belgium towns greeting liberating soldiers from the US, UK, and Canada, while the latter was the result of amoral geopolitics.
You assume that everything should be treated as a self-defense situation: "try or die". But self-defense is a perfectly legitimate principle, so I see no reason to classify it as disproof of the utility of ethical behaviour. Moreover, not everything is a self-defense situation anyway. Try as they might, people who try to paint everything as self-defense are usually bullshitters. Who are these bogeymen running around attacking countries who are more ethical? Iraq? They tried that in 1991, and unlike the 2003 war, everyone agreed that it had to be stopped.
It can also be argued that realpolitik and idealistic goals can be furthered at the same time. Surely Bush is accomplishing both American interests and an idealism of liberation from tyrants right now, in Iraq. Just as it was in the obvious interest of Lincoln's government to wage war to force the South back into the Union, an act that allowed him to free the slaves. And, of course, the American Republic of today being founded in part because French autocrats send us troops, money, and material to wage our war, as well as dispatching their Navy to aid us in fighting the British. It was in their political interests to break the American colonies from the British Crown, of course, but it did have a moral benefit as well. Over two millennia ago, after dealing a decisive blow to the Spartan military at Leuctra, the Theban leader Epaminondas marched an army of Boeotians, including his own Thebans, into Spartan Laconia, trashed the place, and then used that same army to march into Messenia and restore to the people there their freedom after over two centuries of degrading and inhumane enslavement at the hands of Sparta. Epaminondas fulfilled an idealistic goal here, but also one for Thebes and her interests, by destroying forever the basis of Spartan power (namely, the farmers that grew their food so their men could fight year-round and be trained to do so from an early age) and giving Thebes a (short-lived) position of superiority over the rest of the Hellenic world.
Nice list, but apart from showing off, what was it supposed to accomplish? In the end, the question remains: do you think it's important to behave in an ethical fashion? Or do you think it's just a convenient bonus if it happens to come about as an unintended side-effect of pure self-interest?
Even if you were to act in an idealistic manner, as you put it, "individuals should be prepared to sacrifice for the greater good when the alternative is unconscionable", others would not.
So? Unless everyone is ethical, I might as well not be either? What kind of thinking is that? And don't give me this "they might gain an advantage" nonsense; not every nation is a military threat. You are not under siege or in any legitimate fear of being invaded or wiped out.
I'll also add that your statement itself could be used as a justification for realist foreign policy, as an individual leader should be prepared to sacrifice his or her own morality for the greater good
Don't play word-games. It is impossible to sacrifice morality for the greater good, since the furtherment of the greater good is one of the goals of morality.
the maintainance of the Nation-State which he or she has been charged to protect and keep prosperous in the name of his or her people, with the alternative being the weakening and even the destruction of the Nation's power or even political independence, an unconscionable outcome.
It's immoral to weaken a nation's power? So the enlargement of power and influence is somehow a MORAL goal to you, hence its loss is immoral? Fascinating argument ... what the fuck have you been smoking?
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Post by Steve »

Darth Wong wrote: By the same reasoning, ruthless, evil people have an advantage over good people, because they strike first and without scruples. Therefore, we should all forget morality and just go with ruthless evil.
No, but it does mean that even if our morality opposes killing others or doing them harm, we may have to sacrifice that morality to defend ourselves from the ruthless, evil people.
BTW, this does not address my point about idealism not being any less rational than "realpolitik"; the word rational is thrown around an awful lot but not always used correctly.
You have ascertained that realpolitik is not rational because it is "based on the premise that morality is irrelevant and that each person should fuck over everybody else if it suits him, unless the repercussions from that behaviour are too expensive".

And that's not too far from the Wikipedia definition, but a note must be made: you then have to explain why morality cannot be made irrelevant from the principle of international diplomacy.
Two words: foreign aid. States can and do make sacrifices for the greater good on many occasions. The fact that some people think this is a waste of time and should be eliminated does not change that fact.
Foreign aid is also a tool of policy. We give aid to other nations to secure their friendship and alliance, or to bolster them against outside or inside threats that are contrary to our interests.

Secondly, there is a gulf between giving a homeless bum a buck and taking a bullet for someone.

So? Sneak attacks, murder, assassination, and cruelty have also been staples of international diplomacy since ancient times; do you defend those also? Please look up "appeal to tradition" in the "logic fallacies" section of your textbook.
Appeal to tradition for what? I'm pointing out an ongoing characteristic that States have.

And look how well things turned out for them in the long run.
Of course. They were the progenitors of this very society, one you have defended quite eloquently in the past, or at least our secular and scientific mindsets (not the Judeo-Christian faiths that have latched on to the West since the Roman Empire).

They fell after centuries of self-rule, which for some was not continuous due to a brief occupation by the Persian Great King Xerxes in 380-79 B.C.

The fact that all Nations will eventually fall or have alteration of some form or another (Hellenic culture survived the destruction of the Hellenic city-states' autonomy) does not refute the basic tendency of international diplomacy to be amoral.
If "responsible" is a word for "realpolitik limited by ethical principles", I agree. If "responsible" is a word for "whatever we can safely get away with", then I disagree.
Responsible, I would say, is a realist outlook on policy that balances both the practical issues and the moral ones. One Nation can be ethical toward others at times of peace, but when one or the other has interests or even territorial integrity threatened, it cannot be expected to maintain it's ethical stance, with the potential breach determined by the weight of the political object under contest.
Do not apply the self-defense paradigm universally. Unless a state is actually in peril, it is irrelevant. The assumption of a constant state of low-level warfare is self-fulfilling.
Not so much as low-level warfare as contradictory interests. States sometimes agree, mutually, to let these contradictory interests slip to the wayside for mutual benefit. Prussia and Austria did briefly ally to take Schlieswig-Holstein from Denmark, and Britain did allow, conditionally, the Bourbon Phillip V of Spain to take his throne in the end of the War of Spanish Succession, because said conditions gave mutual benefits for both Britain and the Bourbons (France primarily), whom had been warring for years over the issue. (The primary catalyst, of course, was that the other candidate the British were supporting was the Hapsburg Carlos III, who became the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire after his brother passed away with no heirs). But it would be a bit silly to say that States do not have contradictory interests in regions. Our interests and Turkish interests diverge in relation to the Kurds, the Greeks and Turks have been arguing for decades about islands in the Aegean, and how many nations claim Rockall? Four? Hell, just look at Anglo-Argentinian relations, which get prickly whenver the Argentinians make noise about the Falklands.

You assume that everything should be treated as a self-defense situation: "try or die". But self-defense is a perfectly legitimate principle, so I see no reason to classify it as disproof of the utility of ethical behaviour. Moreover, not everything is a self-defense situation anyway. Try as they might, people who try to paint everything as self-defense are usually bullshitters. Who are these bogeymen running around attacking countries who are more ethical? Iraq? They tried that in 1991, and unlike the 2003 war, everyone agreed that it had to be stopped.
Not as a "try or die" situation. But as a situation where interests are on the line.

I'll go more into my own views of realpolitik at the end of the post.
Nice list, but apart from showing off, what was it supposed to accomplish?
Well, I was giving examples of practical gain and idealistic gain together, but I'll confess to some showing off. That, and I'm a great admirer of Epaminondas, and consider it a disgrace that more people don't know about him, probably the greatest emancipator in the history of Classical Greece.
In the end, the question remains: do you think it's important to behave in an ethical fashion? Or do you think it's just a convenient bonus if it happens to come about as an unintended side-effect of pure self-interest?
Both.

Or, more to the point.... I would prefer to have everyone behave in an ethical fashion. I would try to do so myself whenever the situation allows. But you must be prepared to have to take an amoral, or even immoral, approach in certain matters.
So? Unless everyone is ethical, I might as well not be either? What kind of thinking is that? And don't give me this "they might gain an advantage" nonsense; not every nation is a military threat. You are not under siege or in any legitimate fear of being invaded or wiped out.
No, but you cannot always act ethical. You must be prepared to make the sacrifice of your own moral conscious if a situation calls for it.

And of course not every nation is a military threat to our existance, but some are to the existance of our allies, or to our well-being or their well-being. Osama bin Laden may not be able to topple the US Government and destroy the West, but he could still kill thousands more and do severe damage to our economy through more and greater terrorist attacks (especially ones involving chemical or biological warfare agents).

You must approximate your response depending on the scale of the threat and it's capabilities. Maintain ethical stances and actions where possible, but be ready to discard them when it is required.

Don't play word-games. It is impossible to sacrifice morality for the greater good, since the furtherment of the greater good is one of the goals of morality.
So a man who kills ten good people to save a thousand has not acted for the greater good?
It's immoral to weaken a nation's power? So the enlargement of power and influence is somehow a MORAL goal to you, hence its loss is immoral? Fascinating argument ... what the fuck have you been smoking?
I'm talking about responsibility, Michael. If you were to be made the leader of your Nation, you would have a responsibility to your people, just as you, today, have a responsibility to your wife and sons. Now, you've got a good heart, and you're kind to anyone who doesn't first do something stupid to piss you off, but considering the devotion you show your family, I doubt that you consider your conscious to be more important than their well-being.

Now, as for realpolitik....

I have been reading Clausewitz lately. Clausewitz, in the opening chapter of his "On War", identifies war as a duel on an extensive scale, and likens it to two wrestlers, in that warring Nations are opponents who try to compel each other to fulfill their will. This is done in the end by complete disarmament, in theory.

Just the same, realpolitik is the implementation of policy based on realism, or practicality if you prefer, that benefits the Nation in question. In theory, this would mean that a Nation does whatever is practical to further it's interests, even at the expense of others.

In "On War" Clausewitz then goes on to describe aspects of the theoretical abstract of war, but then makes the final point: reality does not permit "Ideal" War. It is impossible. Other factors come into play to prevent the great and immediate clash of forces between Nations that could end with one forced to fulfill the other's will. Instead, war is governed by the political object (hence Clausewitz's famous assertion that "war is an extension of politics by other means"), and the weight, or value, of this object determines the effort that a Nation will put into fulfilling that object.

Much the same, factors do not permit all Nations to do whatever is practical to further their interests even if at the expense of others. An easy example would be you, Michael, and those with the same ethics as you in government positions, who influence a State to not take practical actions if they violate the professed ethics of a nation. International Law backed by the threat of force from other more powerful nations can be another deterrant. Ideology yet another. Surely it wasn't in the best political interests of the Third Reich to exterminate German and Austrian Jews, or to treat all Russians and Ukrainians with equal cruelty when they could have been made allies against Stalin. Because of this, the political object is again at the center of the issue. The weight, or value, of the political object determines the amount of practical means that will be applied to fulfill it, at the expense of ethical or ideological constraints. If the object is the survival of a Nation, all means will be made no matter how unethical. If the object is to maintain a sympathetic leader in a minor nation with no or little strategic value or available resources, then the practical and potentially unethical means applied will be few, if any are used at all, and some leaders would simply shrug and let things develop without interfering, even if it is contrary to the national interest, because it isn't worth the cost in material or national stature.


As I said before, I greatly prefer ethical solutions to every problem, but if you can't find a viable ethical solution, you have to bite the bullet and do what's necessary (with what's necessary being derived from the value of the political object).
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Post by Darth Wong »

Steve, you're missing the entire point. Self-preservation is ethical. Therefore, your argument that it's OK to be unethical in order to defend yourself is silly. However, that argument is typically extended by fans of "realpolitik" into areas where a legitimate self-defense situation does NOT exist, so that it becomes OK to do unethical things for various "national interests" apart from self-defense, and THAT is "realpolitik".

Each time I point this out, you return to your strawman claim that I'm saying you can't defend yourself. This is bullshit and you know it. It is completely ethical to defend yourself if you are in genuine danger, so stop drawing this false dilemma. The nature of "realpolitik" is to use self-defense as an excuse to go on the OFFENSE, even when you're in no legitimate danger.
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Durandal wrote:Whenever I travel overseas, I tell everyone I'm from Canada.
Really? I never have. Maybe that's why the French restruant gave away my reservation.
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Maybe mine...
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Post by Steve »

Darth Wong wrote:Steve, you're missing the entire point. Self-preservation is ethical. Therefore, your argument that it's OK to be unethical in order to defend yourself is silly. However, that argument is typically extended by fans of "realpolitik" into areas where a legitimate self-defense situation does NOT exist, so that it becomes OK to do unethical things for various "national interests" apart from self-defense, and THAT is "realpolitik".
No, I get your point, but I don't think you're quite getting mine.
Each time I point this out, you return to your strawman claim that I'm saying you can't defend yourself.
I'm not saying that you're saying we cannot defend ourselves against a legitimate threat.
It is completely ethical to defend yourself if you are in genuine danger, so stop drawing this false dilemma.

I'm drawing nothing. You seem to think I am, but that makes me think you're not understanding me.
The nature of "realpolitik" is to use self-defense as an excuse to go on the OFFENSE, even when you're in no legitimate danger.
No, the nature of realpolitik is to put into practice a policy that applies practical means for the fulfillment of national interests without regard for ethics, morality, or ideology.

You, however, believe that ethics must be applied within international relations and that it is not the amoral thing that most realists purport, and thus to you, realpolitik's refusal to accept any moral or ethical constraints is immorality and the equivalent of what would, in a domestic situation between people, be a criminal mentality.

You view it, as you do many other things, with the glasses of a moral position, because you strongly believe in morality. That's a great trait for a person. But not in an attempt to understand realpolitik.

Realpolitik has something it shares with the scientific method: it is completely amoral. Just as the scientific method contains within it no set morality, neither does realpolitik. To try and impose morality upon it would be the same as to try and assign morality to the scientific method. You're adding an extra and unneeded variable to the basic foundation.

Morality comes into play only when you begin to consider actual policies in reality, which can never approach the abstract of realpolitik for the reasons I laid out above and is affected by the random variables of reality that includes, unsurprisingly, the moral/ethical code of the leadership of a Nation.

A Machiavellian leader would be willing to ignore his own moral code to achieve a national interest, provided the expense in material and national position met the value of the political object or was exceeded by it. A moralist issue would not.do so unless he had an ethical purpose to do so.

In summation: International diplomacy is not black-and-white, but a variety of grays with some black and white at either end of the spectrum. That's all I ask you to understand.
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"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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Post by Steve »

A moralist issue would not.do so unless he had an ethical purpose to do so.
Dammit! I meant "moralist leader". :oops:
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Post by Edi »

Steve, the big problem in your position is that you insist on using the abstract theory of realpolitik and apply it as is to issues, but when the practicality flaws in that approach are pointed out and of necessity the counterarguments that call for at least some inclusion of a moral approach and accounting for of human nature (since we aren't unfeeling machines, and we are affected by the politics) are introduced, you just repeat yourself.

You've got Clausewitcz's theory down pat, but you somehow manage to misinterpret the most important point he makes at the beginning of the book (I've read the first three chapters or so this far, must get back to it), namely that human nature prevents the complete application of the abstract, even when tempered with the political object, because while the political object may (or may not) be rational, it cannot run too deeply counter to the prevailing public desires (unless there's of course a means of enforcing it, e.g. police state terror apparatus) without failing. The political object that best serves the state's interests and the political object desired by the people of the state may actually differ quite radically at times, and you can probably see what conclusions that situation points to when it arises.

In abstract models, there are no consequences or reactions to actions, or they are only short-term in duration and always rational, but reality works very differently since humans are largely governed by their emotions and those are irrational. Mike has a consistent position that has a much better applicability to international politics than yours, and his has the additional benefit of incorporating (a humanist) moral approach whenever it is viable. It beats the one you've put forth quite soundly, because it can get largely the same results with a much smaller diplomatical price tag.

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Post by Steve »

My point, Edi, is that, in the scope of international diplomacy, morality is something we add in, it's not part of the basic abstract. I've put greater thought into it since last night, of course, and I've found that my stance on the issue isn't quite so far from Mike's, since I prefer an ethical outcome and would rather not pursue a policy that contradicted my ethics unless I had to.

And I pretty much said the same thing you just did about realpolitik. Clausewitz's theories about War apply to it as well, and that's what I meant when I made that second-to-last post. The Will of the Nation has to be in line with the policies implemented or the policies will be half-hearted and eventually be removed. Vietnam is probably a good example, as the Will to fulfill our goals there was reduced.

I suppose, in the end, the major difference is one of the base definition of realpolitik. Mike insists on approaching it as a moral issue when it's not an issue of morality.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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