Pulling Punches: Realism’s Requisite Restraint Brian C. Rathbun University of Southern California
[email protected] Abstract Sometimes equated with a vision of international relations as a war of all against all, as a theoretical and normative tradition realism is actually much more sophisticated, generally cautioning restraint. This article seeks to correct the widely held misperception of realism as a one-dimensional, saber-rattling approach by outlining three reasons that realists, both classical and modern, caution restraint for strategic and self- interested purposes: escaping unnecessary and unproductive security dilemmas, avoiding cycles of hostility and grievance exacerbated by nationalism and other strong identities, and preventing states from defining their interests in overly expansive ways that exceed their capacity to defend them. Indeed restraint is an essential ingredient in realism and realpolitik. Bringing theoretical insights and systematic empirical analysis together for the first time on this question, a detailed case study of Bismarck show that even the most revisionist of realists embraced restraint for all of these reasons. At a decisive moment in history in which Bismarck faced the least structural constraints, the wake of Prussia’s military victory of Austria in 1866, he practiced restraint both at home and abroad so as to assure his long-term goal of German unification. Realism is misunderstood. Sometimes equated with a vision of international relations as a war of all against all, as a theoretical and normative tradition it is actually much more sophisticated. Restraint is essential to realist theory, since all realists stress the necessity of defining interests and goals in light of structural constraints.