HOME
*



picture info

Realpolitik
''Realpolitik'' (; ) refers to enacting or engaging in diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism. It is often simply referred to as pragmatism in politics, e.g. "pursuing pragmatic policies" or "realistic policies". While often used as a positive and neutral term, the term ''Realpolitik'' is sometimes also used pejoratively to imply political policies that are perceived as being coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian. Prominent proponents of ''Realpolitik'' during the 20th century include Henry Kissinger, George F. Kennan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, as well as politicians such as Charles De Gaulle and Lee Kuan Yew. Etymology The term ''Realpolitik'' was coined by Ludwig von Rochau, a German writer and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Ludwig Von Rochau
August Ludwig von Rochau (20 August 1810 in Wolfenbüttel – 15 October 1873 in Heidelberg) was a German journalist and politician. He engaged in the ''Frankfurter Wachensturm'' of 1833 and subsequently spent ten years of exile in France. He published the famous ''Grundsätze der Realpolitik, angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands'' ("Practical Politics: an Application of its Principles to the Situation of the German States") in 1853. Biography Rochau was born out of wedlock in northern Germany in 1810. Rochau studied law, history, and political science in Jena and Göttingen. He was among the fifty students who stormed the Hauptwache (Frankfurt am Main), Hauptwache (guard house or police headquarters) in Frankfurt. After the failure of the uprising, Rochau was arrested and condemned to prison for life. However, his friends helped him escape to France, where he lived in exile for the next ten years and wrote essays for liberalism, liberal German newspapers. He oper ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Unification Of Germany
The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federalism, federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of the North German Confederation Treaty establishing the North German Confederation, initially a Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian-dominated military alliance which was subsequently deepened through adoption of the North German Constitution. The process symbolically concluded with the ceremonial proclamation of the German Empire on 18 January 1871 celebrated later as the customary date of the German Empire's foundation, although the legally meaningful events relevant to the accomplishment of unification occured on 1 January 1871 (Constitution of the German Confederation (1871), accession of South German states and constitutional adoption of the name German Empire) and 4 May 1871 (entry into force of the permanent Constitution of the Germ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, Kissinger excelled academically, receiving his BA degree '' summa cum laude'' from Harvard College in 1950, studying under William Yandell Elliott. He received his MA and PhD degrees at Harvard University in 1951 and 1954, respectively. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances. A practitioner of ''Realpolitik'', Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977, pioneering the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrating an opening of relations with the People's Republic o ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Political Realism
Realism is one of the dominant schools of thought in international relations theory, theoretically formalising the Realpolitik statesmanship of early modern Europe. Although a highly diverse body of thought, it is unified by the belief that world politics is always and necessarily a field of conflict among actors pursuing wealth and power. The theories of realism are contrasted by the cooperative ideals of liberalism in international relations. Realists are divided into three classes based on their view of the essential causes of interstate conflict. Classical realists believe it follows from human nature; neorealists attribute it to the dynamics of the anarchic state system; neoclassical realists believe it results from both, in combination with domestic politics. Neorealists are also divided between defensive and offensive realism. Realists trace the history of their ideas back through classical antiquity, beginning with Thucydides. Realism entails a spectrum of ideas, wh ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Realism (international Relations)
Realism is one of the dominant schools of thought in international relations theory, theoretically formalising the Realpolitik statesmanship of early modern Europe. Although a highly diverse body of thought, it is unified by the belief that world politics is always and necessarily a field of conflict among actors pursuing wealth and power. The theories of realism are contrasted by the cooperative ideals of liberalism in international relations. Realists are divided into three classes based on their view of the essential causes of interstate conflict. Classical realists believe it follows from human nature; neorealists attribute it to the dynamics of the anarchic state system; neoclassical realists believe it results from both, in combination with domestic politics. Neorealists are also divided between defensive and offensive realism. Realists trace the history of their ideas back through classical antiquity, beginning with Thucydides. Realism entails a spectrum of ideas, whi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Otto Von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of Junker landowners, Bismarck rose rapidly in Prussian politics, and from 1862 to 1890 he was the Minister President of Prussia, minister president and List of foreign ministers of Prussia, foreign minister of Prussia. Before his rise to the Executive (government), executive, he was the Prussian ambassador to Russian Empire, Russia and Second French Empire, France and served in both houses of the Landtag of Prussia, Prussian Parliament. He masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871 and served as the first Chancellor of Germany#Under the Emperor (1871–1918), Chancellor of the German Empire until 1890, in which capacity he dominated European affairs. He had served as the chancellor of the North German Confederation from 1867 to 1871, alon ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Power Politics
Power politics is a theory in international relations which contends that distributions of power and national interests, or changes to those distributions, are fundamental causes of war and of system stability. The concept of power politics provides a way of understanding systems of international relations: in this view, states compete for the world's limited resources, and it is to an individual state's advantage to be manifestly able to harm others. Power politics prioritizes national self-interest over the interests of other nations or the international community, and thus may include threatening one another with military, economic, or political aggression to protect one nation's own interest. Techniques of power politics include: * Deterrence theory, in which a weaker state deters attack by bolstering its defensive capabilities enough to render attacking infeasible * Conspicuous weapons development (including nuclear development) * Pre-emptive strikes * Blackmail * The mas ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hans-Dietrich Genscher
Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice Chancellor of Germany from 1974 to 1992 (except for a two-week break in 1982, after the FDP had left the Third Schmidt cabinet), making him the longest-serving occupant of either post and the only person to have held one of these positions under two different Chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1991 he was chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). A proponent of Realpolitik, Genscher has been called "a master of diplomacy". He is widely regarded as having been a principal "architect of German reunification". In 1991, he played a pivotal role in international diplomacy surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia by successfully pushing for international recognition of Croatia, Sloveni ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes. Pragmatism began in the United States in the 1870s. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. In 1878, Peirce described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."Peirce, C.S. (1878), " How to Make Our Ideas Clear", ''Popular Science Monthly'', v. 12, 286–302. Reprinted often, including ''Collected Papers'' v. 5, paragraphs 388–410 an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work. He also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self-interest. His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide. The Melian dialogue is regarded as a seminal work of international relations theory, while his version of Pericles' Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historian ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu ( ; zh, t=孫子, s=孙子, first= t, p=Sūnzǐ) was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who lived during the Eastern Zhou period of 771 to 256 BCE. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of ''The Art of War'', an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. Sun Tzu is revered in Chinese and East Asian culture as a legendary historical and military figure. His birth name was Sun Wu ( zh, t=孫武, s=孙武, first=t) and he was known outside of his family by his courtesy name Changqing ( zh, t=長卿). The name ''Sun Tzu'' by which he is more popularly known is an honorific which means "Master Sun". Sun Tzu's historicity is uncertain. The Han dynasty historian Sima Qian and other traditional Chinese historians placed him as a minister to King Helü of Wu and dated his lifetime to 544–496 BCE. Modern scholars accepting his historicity place the extant text of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Legalism (Chinese Philosophy)
Legalism or ''Fajia'' is one of the six classical schools of thought in Chinese philosophy. Literally meaning "house of (administrative) methods / standards (法, Fa)", the Fa "school" represents several branches of "men of methods", in the west often termed " realist" statesmen,who played foundational roles in the construction of the bureaucratic Chinese empire.Peng He 2011. p. 646. The Difference of Chinese Legalism and Western Legalism The earliest persona of the Fajia may be considered Guan Zhong (720–645 BC), but following the precedent of the ''Han Feizi'' (c. 240 BC), Warring States period figures Shen Buhai (400–337 BC) and Shang Yang (390–338 BC) have commonly been taken as its "founders." Commonly thought of as the greatest of all "Legalist" texts, the ''Han Feizi'' is believed to contain the first commentaries on the ''Dao De Jing'' in history.Ewan Ferlie, Laurence E. Lynn, Christopher Pollitt 2005 p. 30, ''The Oxford Handbook of Public Management''Pines, Y ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]