Dream the Possible Dream

Realpolitik: A History By John BewOxford University Press: 2015

We will carpet bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out. -Ted Cruz, senator and presidential candidateWhat I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of ‘American leadership’ or ‘America winning’ that has no relationship to what is actually going to work. -Barack Obama

John Bew proposes an unlikely antidote to the call for more violent leadership: more and better realpolitik. His project in Realpolitik: A History is as insightful as it is bold. For those of us familiar with the concept of "realpolitik" exclusively through its vague contemporary usage, his pitch is strange indeed. In its current usage, it's a hard-nosed posture, which places force above ideals and generally deals in shady, if not frankly immoral, policies. The word calls to mind South American juntas, backroom deals with Iran, and and ‘friendly’ dictators in the Middle East. It isn’t always bad - there’s something to be said for backroom deals and stability - but it is never pretty or principled.In Bew’s telling, when realpolitik emerged, it was a very different and more promising idea. Realpolitik wasn’t about ignoring principles, it was about making them real. It wasn’t about posturing abroad, it was about sensitively analysing political problems. And, it wasn't an excuse to wave off ideals, it was a challenge to be more effective dreamers.Realpolitik grew out of the disastrous collapse of liberalism after the Revolutions of 1848. It’s creator, Ludwig Rochau, concluded there was a serious error at the heart of the liberal project, which he nonetheless continued to support. The liberals proved history was on their side -- they crafted the finest arguments, they set hearts aflutter, they even played at parliament. All was well, except they had no institutional support, no plausible plan, and no leverage. They’d done all the philosophy and none of the politics. Reform in the political arena isn’t like debate in the coffee shop or verbal jousting in the salon, Rochau argued. It is a delicate balance of powers, a play of popular ideas, and a system of economic, cultural, and legal structures all at once. The reformers either hadn’t noticed these forces or they refused to dirty their hands. They needed to get Real if they were going to hold back the fearsome tide and, Bew argues, so do we.Rochau’s realpolitik is a set of tools for investigating political change in terms of both power and ideal types. Whereas the ancien regime focused on force and the reformers on ideas, the new statesman realized “the job of a constitution was to reflect the interplay of social forces within the state, from classes and interest groups to ideas and opinions.” Because statesmen had to cope with the full breadth of social forces - interest blocs, traditions, opinions, institutions - change would be “a long march, rather than a quick seizure of power.” If one focused exclusively on matters of conscience, character, and purity then one is liable to end up “splintering into insignificant atoms the very forces which can function effectively merely as a part of a mass.” Bew points out that this amounts to a warning to autocrats as well, because “a weak constitution was one that denied participation in the state to powerful societal forces and therefore failed to harness their energy to make the state more powerful.” An effective state is focused on strength, but ‘strength’ means integrating all the disparate parts of the nation into an effective whole.Egypt’s post-revolutionary course illustrates his point. The revolutionaries found their projects frustrated by the weakness of civil society and the hostility of institutions, especially the judiciary and the armed forces. Ousting the old dictator didn’t change the balance of power. Promulgating a new constitution didn’t reform the bureaucracy. Marching didn’t revitalize civil society or change the habits of the public. The legacy of tyranny left the revolutionaries without access to the experience, organization, and leverage needed to make ideas real. Of course, that hardly speaks well to the authoritarians. They too haven’t learned the lessons of realpolitik. They rule by making the nation as a whole much weaker. The security services are indispensable because they have hollowed out all other power sources. Ultimately, that doesn’t make society stronger or more secure; it produces stasis.But there is a wrinkle that Bew is careful to point out. We cannot simply adopt realpolitik without reservation. First, the concept we have is the product of more than 150 years of repurposing and reappropriation. We have to recover the original, healthier idea before it can be useful. Second, the concept itself is part of the problem. Good realpolitik is haunted by an evil twin: a Machiavellian realpolitik that worships force and misleads its practitioners. The proponents think they are being neutral, level-headed, and serious, but they are actually advancing a warped and dangerous morality of their own; one that treats domination as a cardinal virtue and trains us to be predatory. This dangerous animal changes the political world around it and induces the very security crises it supposedly treats. When we hear calls for mass reprisal, brutal policing, and ‘making the sand glow’ it is this self-deceiving realpolitik speaking, savage idiocy that congratulates itself on its superior wisdom.Bew is careful not to indulge in special pleading. The bad realpolitik is not an accident only tangentially connected to the good one. Instead, he carefully documents how one tends to encourage the other by building cynicism and highlighting the importance of force. Realpolitik is a seriously dangerous tool, but a valuable one nonetheless. We Americans are heirs to a soft, but real empire and our realpolitik needs to be one of modesty. When we get too idealistic or too brutish (the two being hard to separate in the mission civilisatrice), someone comes along to remind us how much harm we can do to our own countrymen or to entire nations if we throw a tantrum.There’s a very modest form of realpolitik, which states that force is an inevitable element of political life, which should neither be shunned nor worshipped. When analyzing a situation or choosing a policy, one must consider ideas, but also the players involved and the practical possibilities. It’s a true, but easily overblown, reminder that politics is not a parlor game. Politics is bloody, dangerous, and ruthless, so we must adjust our expectations accordingly. This, realpolitik can be a moderating influence against the use of force. People like to think violence vigorously applied will secure huge changes of all sorts - think of every fool who promises to ‘go in there’ and remake a nation - but that is more difficult than it seems and relies on a great deal of cooperation. Sergei Lavrov, the long serving Russian foreign minister, seems devoted to this kind of ultra-cautious, skeptical view of both power and ideas. He’s excused Russia’s advances into Eastern Europe as a reasonable protection of their sphere of interest. However, he’s also condemned idealistic uses of force like the NATO mission in Libya on the grounds that intercession is unlike to remake a foreign polity for the better.There is also a vague and polemical realpolitik, which doesn’t claim much at all. “It has come to denote a posture, or a philosophical inclination, rather than anything more substantive” and it’s adherents often claim it “in a self-satisfied manner, with the intention of dismissing their opponents as unrealistic, unsophisticated, and uninformed.” This rhetorical version can be applied to almost anything even - especially - if it is unconscionable. Appeasement was justified this way as was the Western alliance with Stalin. Containment, rollback, and detente were all sold as realistic policy. Stability through friendly dictators or a soft empire of client democracies, both clearly realpolitik. A politician can defend almost anything if he adopts a sneering tone, peers down his nose, and sounds tough. Vladimir Putin’s shirtless photo-ops and conspiratorial harangues to the Russian people are a particularly crude version of this posturing as politics.But there is also a third, extremely dangerous kind of realpolitik, which takes the rhetoric much too seriously. It is more properly called Machtpolitik, the politics of force, and it treats power and domination as cardinal virtues. This realpolitik says that war is salutary for a nation, that political life is aimed at empire, and that compromise is a sign of moral turpitude to be eradicated. Heinrich Treitschke, nationalist historian and public taste-maker, spoke to this style when he wrote that “fiery patriotism and the conviction that even the most oppressive despotism must be welcomed if it warrants the might and unity of the fatherland.” Friedrich von Bernhardi, a Prussian general, sounded the same notes when he “rejected international law and treaties as fallacious nonsense and described war as a ‘biological necessity.’” Instead of puncturing idealistic illusions, this kind of realpolitik breeds its own.Jingoist realpolitik can amount to a self-fulfilling prophecy especially if adopted by regional hegemons. The more powerful agents treat political issues in terms of an anarchic struggle for dominance, the more political affairs follow suit. Everyone else is strongly tempted to act first, to strike before hit, and to fight instead of reason. Even worse, leaders may learn to disregard other options for fear of seeming weak or naive. Both the power politics and the idea politics start pushing nations toward dangerous escalation.The period between the two world wars demonstrates this contagion twice over. When the British and French made clear their mercenary attitudes toward the Middle East, they “spread like wildfire.” Smaller nations had no choice but to play the game as well or risk being consumed by the calculus of the great powers. The British struck a deal of convenience with the Egyptian Wafd Party to serve as a bulwark against Italian expansion. Soon, the Egyptians were lobbying for British assistance with Arab unification and threatening to defect to the Italian camp should such aid not be forthcoming. There was no point standing on principle when it was well known the British would make or abandon treaties as advantage dictated.Similarly, once the Western powers acceded to German designs on the Sudetenland and publicly renounced collective security, Polish and Czech decision makers followed suit. Jozef Beck, the Polish foreign minister, began trying to balance the Soviet Union, which Poland had invaded in 1919 to seize territory, against the Nazis while simultaneously bullying the Czech government over disputed lands. In turn, the Soviet and German governments abandoned all pretense of principle in their notorious pact against Poland. Instead of achieving a more practical and stable configuration, the realpolitikers of Eastern Europe had set the stage for war.But wishful thinking, fascination with force, and lazy appeals to leadership should not be attributed to some special vice of any particular nation. Bew makes clear that realpolitik - in any of its manifestations - is always a dangerous tool, which has aided and harmed over and over. By following the idea’s journey through Germany, then through America and Britain in the the interwar years, and finally through Cold War discourse, Bew shows us how reasonable and toxic uses can come arm in arm. The modest, analytical realpolitik asks us to consider all the irrational and forceful elements of political life that and not just the principles that ought to guide life. It is all too easy to distort or misunderstand that argument and end up dismissing principles out right.Like Rochau’s colleagues, modern liberals face their own disappointments in the Anglosphere, Europe, and the Middle East. They do need the sobering sort of realism, but must keep back the devouring one. We need realpolitik as Rochau envisioned it, not as Bismarck remade it.Ludwig von Rochau has had virtually no impact on the English-speaking world apart from the word realpolitik. Bew notes with wry humor that Rochau’s only work appearing in translation is a travelogue of Italy (it’s middling). That’s unfortunate, because Rochau wants to tell us that we modern liberals have made a serious error; the reformer who ignores power and puts his faith entirely in theory does more to hurt himself than the irrational conditions he opposes. Principled critique can open up the horizon of possibilities. Protests and marches can raise awareness and build solidarity. But movements like Occupy Wall Street, which insist on direct action, localism, lack of hierarchy, and education in lieu of legislation, organization, and power politics are very unlikely to succeed. Perhaps we should live in flat, power-free world, but that is not this world. Bureaucracy, parties, law, agitprop, and power blocs are required to make any dream - even a dream of liberation - into a reality. This is a sobering lesson for libertarians, anarchists, socialists, and anyone else disdainful of domination in its various forms.Rochau was not a prudent youth. In 1833 Rochau and a fistful of co-conspirators tried to storm a garrison of the German Confederacy, seize the treasury, and inspire a revolution. Plans that begin “inspire a revolution” do not fare well and Rochau’s band of fifty-odd radicals were scattered to the winds. In a way, they were lucky. When the big revolutions came and failed in 1848, Rochau was pre-emptively disappointed. The would-be remakers of the world found themselves on the outs, exiled, or swinging from a gallows. Rochau was not surprised. Bew reports Rochau’s autopsy on the liberal revolutions:

They had been naïve and deluded, to the detriment of the liberal and national cause. They spoke in philosophical terms about their ideal political system while the tectonic plates of German politics rumbled and shifted beneath their feet. They dreamed up superstructures but they forgot the base. “A work that had been begun with aimless enthusiasm and carried out with an over-estimation of one’s own capabilities ended in dishonor and injury,” he was later to write.

He wasn’t swearing off philosophy or enthusiasm; he was trying to overcome their inherent limitations. Philosophy would help us determine what a good state would look like. Enthusiasm would help us find the courage and the conviction to act. realpolitik would help us “build a stable and liberal nation-state without recourse to violent convulsion or repression.”This new statecraft had two tasks: 1) determine the “contending social, economic, and ideological forces struggling for supremacy” in a given political situation and 2) “achieve some equilibrium and balance among these forces so they would not hinder” reasonable progress. Whatever solution you propose, it must work here and now with the people we have and the forces in play. You cannot invent the constituency you want nor reason a state into being. This new view of statecraft needed a new foundation to support it. Rochau offered four primary claims, which build on one another. Taken together, they offer something new, neither the crystal palace of the idealists nor the ‘might makes right’ of a Callicles.He starts by reinterpreting “the law of the strong,” which seems to favor his enemies. Sovereignty - the organizing authority in a state - is not a natural possession conferred by right. It is an expression of power. The sovereign is whoever gives shape to society. Who should be sovereign is a legitimate question, but answering it will not change who is sovereign. Neither law nor contract can curb a power which wishes to break society. Only greater force can compel the wrongdoer back into good order. But, such containment will not itself confer legitimacy, the right to rule. Legitimacy only comes when dissidents are integrated into society in such a way that their power enhances rather than harms society. The aristocrats err in thinking the strong possess the right to rule. The idealists err in thinking the right to rule makes someone strong.Rochau argues a society’s health lies in channeling its power blocs into productive uses. Weak states squander their potential by fighting internally. Strong states put an end to the fighting and direct the energies elsewhere. The more segments of society one can draw in, the better off the polity will be. Repressive regimes are inefficient; they use a substantial portion of their time and energy keeping things from exploding. Even if the ruling clique looks down on its subjects or rejects their values, accommodating and unleashing the subjects’ talent in a useful way is infinitely preferable to maintaining ideological purity and fighting a civil war. A state which cannot make such simple compromises is dangerously brittle.Of course, ideas do matter but not the way they matter for philosophers and ideologues. What people believe and the strength of their conviction matter even if their ideas are stupid, contradictory, arbitrary, or unsatisfying. Theoretical discussions turn on what a theory implies and what it can defend. When someone takes up the theoretical mindset, they look at events in the same way. For instance, if Christ enjoined his followers to live poor and humble lives and you are a committed Christian you should live in that manner. Of course, that would not be a plausible way to analyze Christian nations. As a matter of fact they aren’t very poor or humble and pointing that fact out probably won’t make Europe renounce its riches. Political analysis and change both have to cope with the ‘stickiness’ of beliefs and the power of all sorts of nonsense.Finally, Rochau notes that technology has changed the nature of statecraft by incorporating an ever greater mass of ordinary persons into public life. The Zeitgeist expressed in newspapers and journals “is the single most important factor in determining the trajectory of a nation’s politics.” What the public embraces will set the horizon of the possible. For instance, economists have touted the merits of direct payment instead of welfare state provisions due to the relatively light administrative burden and the increased flexibility of money over goods. However, such a political program is simply untenable; it doesn’t matter that it would be more efficient, it will not be accepted. Moving the Overton Window - i.e. the commonsense opinion of what counts as moderate - is thus a prelude to any serious reform especially when the commonsense notion is foolish. Sometimes, like in the wake of terrorist attacks or communal riots, the Zeitgeist shifts dramatically on its own. Political skill often consists in taming and surviving these eruptions more so than manipulating or directing them. If all of that was true when news spread at the speed of the mailman, one can only imagine its power in the age of the internet.None of this should sound terribly unfamiliar. Rochau’s realpolitik amounts to rules of prudence for investigating political life. Politics doesn’t obey moral orders nor does it have a three act structure. Power groups, structural features, and public opinion can all surge up into political relevance whether we think they should or not. If you want to reform things, or just act carefully, then you need to reckon with these powers. Instead of one group squishing another, a good sovereign finds a way to rope every sector into society so that they more or less contribute to one another and the strength of the nation as a whole. When this goes well the nation becomes much stronger, since it is not repressing part of itself and because of multiplication effects. The same can be said of foreign affairs. If the international order accommodates many nations, then it is better and more durable than an alienating and repressive order.Bew and Rochau are both careful to stress that one must take stock of the political situation at hand. Theory can be very helpful for understanding the world, but it can also amount to building “castles in the air,” or deciding what one believes regardless of what is happening. If that is so, then any practitioner of realpolitik should confirm her situation is similar to the one Rochau was addressing.Metternich’s post-Napoleonic order had assured the ascendency of the ancien regime - crown and gown - but struggled to cope with the forces of liberalism and nationalism. The nationalists wanted states founded on ethnic communities, the liberals wanted representative and rights-based government, and they tended to view themselves as partners in arms. In 1848 a series of revolutions shook Europe as news of one successful revolt ignited others in turn. Metternich fell in Austria, the Second Republic rose in France, the Kingdom of Hungary declared independence, and a parliament devised the constitution for a united German Empire. Within a few years, conservative forces have regained control either under their own power or with the aid of the Russian Czar. The Second Republic even falls to a second Napoleon, the much inferior Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. Some nations, like Hungary, were subject to garrisons and military rule. Others, like Prussia, embrace a staunchly conservative version of nationalism built around military strength, aristocratic supremacy, and strong leadership. The pan-European spirit of the revolution was badly shaken as was the supposed connection between national ascendency and liberal ideals.Rochau addressed his ideas to the Prussian public as it adjusted to the new normal. Bismarck had taken up the nationalist cause, but had little use for the idealism of the liberals. The liberals, meanwhile, found themselves in a very weak bargaining position. Rochau had something to offer to both of them. If the conservatives coopted the burgeoning middle classes, the state as a whole would be much stronger. If the liberals adapted their ideas to the actual conditions of life - instead of holding out for the revolution - they might do some good despite themselves. In particular, he was asking the liberals to hold their nose and play ball with Bismarck, who Rochau rightly saw as an incredibly dangerous but also incredibly durable figure. Bismarck wasn’t going away, so the new state would either get some liberal color or none at all.Sadly, Bismarck proved much better at realpolitik than its intended audience. When he needed the liberals, he coopted them gladly. Once his power base was secured in the nationalist camp, he deposited the dreamers back on the sideline. Bismarck’s skill at reading the political weather allowed him to advance his goals, maintain public backing, and keep political life stumbling forward - precisely the sort of knack for dynamic stability his liberal critics lacked.His real splash, of course, was in foreign affairs. He deftly manipulated the Austrians and the French until Germany was united on his - extremely conservative - terms. Bismarck’s deft albeit dodgy foreign policy picked up the name realpolitik as well as a few other chilling sobriquets: Machtpolitik (the politics of force), and Weltpolitik (world politics). The stage was now set for confusion. Apart from Bismarck, three Germans tower over this first recoloring of the word realpolitik: Treitschke the nationalist historian, Meinecke a more reasonable but still flawed figure, and Friedrich Wilhelm II kaiser and moron.If Bew’s history has a villain, it is the charismatic, borderline fascist Heinrich Treitschke. Treitschke did much to blur the distinction between Real-, Macht- and Weltpolitik as part of a persistent campaign to remake Germany’s self-understanding. According to Bew, Treitschke had appointed himself as a spiritual advisor to the burgeoning German nation. He would give the German’s a new self-understanding and a new sense of politics:

What Germany lacked was the self-confidence and sense of destiny that existed in any other nations. To serve this end, Treitschke began a history of Germany in the nineteenth century. Politics was applied history. The state, building on a now familiar idea, was a living organism. Cosmopolitanism and provincialism were both enemies to this.

Treitschke’s task as propagandist in chief was to rouse the proper respect for Volk und Vaterland, set might at the center of political thought, and steel the public for a hard and dangerous course. He was a militarist, an anti-Semite, and tolerant of despotism provided it furthered the national project. He was also a fan of Bismarck, especially after the Seven Weeks War, and did much to intertwine the august Prussian with his own fascinations and with realpolitik. In fact, Bismarck himself courted Treitschke as a propagandist for his new policies and gave the historian free access to the state archives. As an essayist, parliamentarian, and an employee of the Prussian state, Treitschke “was more important than any other in keeping alive the notion of Realpolitik, and equally responsible for distorting its meaning.” From here on, the story of realpolitik would also be the story of empire, underhanded diplomacy, and the scramble for supremacy. One should hardly be surprised that the word picked up unlovely connotations.But Treitschke himself was well aware of these problems. In his own words, he rejects the moral interpretation that treats the state as “a good little boy, to be washed, brushed, and sent to school [and thinks] he must have his ears pulled to keep him good, and in return he is to be thankful, just-minded, and Heaven knows what else.” But, as Bew relates, he has nothing but scorn for that Machiavellianism, which reduces all political life to violence.

The man who declared that might and the mailed fist alone decide the fate of nations was “often a soured fanatic who in his youth smoked away at the pipe of peace, discovered that that was too good for this poor world, rushed off to the other extreme, and now declares that the basis of all things is brutality and cynicism” … The most effective statesmen were those who could awaken “the finer energies which, despite all frailties and brutish instincts, lie dormant in man.”His restraint is somewhat surprising, but instructive. Even he doesn’t think politics is simply about force nor simply about empire. Those are supposed to be means, but often get perverted into ends in themselves.

By showing us this subtler side to Treitschke, Bew makes two important points. The reception of the idea tends to get away from people even when they explicitly reject crude realism. That speaks in favor of Treitschke, but it is also a clear warning to us. Reservations stay in the academy, broad outlines seep into the world. Second, Bew rises above the temptation to pillory Treitschke even though he was, in some respects, a very bad person. Because realpolitik is a moral hot potato, debates around it tend to get ugly. Instead of treating one another with respect, advocates and detractors conjure phantoms to fight and ensure neither can moderate the other. Ironically, that kind of breakdown violates Rochau’s call for an organic state. If they actually contributed to a common conversation, they would hold one another in check.Strangely, Treitschke thinks imperial expansion was required because of English perfidy. England, he thought, had built a cozy empire by dominating the sea and ruthlessly smashing any potential rival. Having gobbled half the Earth, the English still had the temerity to condemn expansion or even unification among the Germans. The English, he concludes, are fundamentally hypocritical and self-deceiving. In their own expansion, they saw a big brotherly concern for the world and in the expansion of others, they saw an intolerable menace. By pursuing naked self-aggrandizement while congratulating themselves on impeccable virtue, the English make themselves supremely dangerous. One could not reason with them, because they did not want to see the truth.That’s self-serving on Treitschke’s part, but he does have a point and it proves a momentous one. He’s saying that the Germans require an empire for self-defense, because the masquerade of ideals prevents the British from reasoning properly with other nations. They will only be restrained by an equally great power and power comes from empire and national unity. Treitschke’s narrative, which denounces English moralism as a cynical farce, reinforced the obsession with conflict and made it easier to transition into outright worship of war.It also bound together the ideas of liberal idealism and hypocritical expansion. Germany developed a peculiar form of conservative thought, culminating in the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, that sees liberalism as an inherently crusading force used by the Anglo-Saxons to rationalization their predations. According to these German theorists, liberals tend to speak as though they had a monopoly on decency and reason, because they attribute their aims to the good of all humanity. If the liberal speaks on behalf of all humanity, then his enemies must be opposed to humanity as well. Territorial conflicts are supposedly recast as struggles between good and evil with England always on the side of the angels.That’s hardly a fair description of liberalism, but it gained special resonance after the Allies insisted on assigning war guilt to Germany after WWI. Some Germans leaned into this narrative and even accused their own liberals of stabbing the army in the back. This resentful strain of thought doubled down on the conflation between realpolitik and machtpolitik. Another strain, exemplified by Friedrich Meinecke, attempted to revive the more moderate and moderating realpolitik to fight against imperialism.Meinecke was Treitschke’s successor as editor of the foremost historical journal in Germany and his successor as a theorist of realpolitik. Meinecke intended to reassess the development of the German empire and to purge realpolitik of some excesses, which caused more harm than good. He wished to direct realpolitik away from militarism and toward a more cautious and more Machiavellian form. He arrogated realpolitik to raison d’etat, the idea that the state must pursue its own interest rather than personal morality, but rejected what he called the “false idealization of power politics” and the “crudely naturalistic and biological ethics of force.” This version of realpolitik became so well established that, according to Bew, it is the default version “for theorists of international relations to this day.” Apart from his own work, his students “Hajo Holborn and Felix Gilbert … taught some of the next generation of scholars and foreign policy practitioners in the United States.” Directly or indirectly, Meinecke would broadly influence the realist thinkers that so influenced post-war American thinking.After WWI Meinecke decided that if German statesmen were less hypocritical than English ones, they were also more stubborn and perhaps more savage. Treitscke’s thunderous style had indeed prepared the nation for a titanic struggle, but it also obscured the beneficial effects of idealism. Instead of a sober analysis of existing power relations, Meinecke saw that the German politicians had come to pride themselves on their forthright ambition. It was a short step from there to a “politics of violence” that reveled in war for its own sake. Combined with the Pan-German League’s clamour for colonies in the Baltic and Lebensraum in the Slavic nations, the German Empire had set forth on a project of domination. Worse, they had lost the subtler feeling that even Treitschke had defended. Although, that loss could arguably be laid at Treitschke’s own feet.On more a strategic level, Meinecke also criticized the German leadership for misunderstanding their geopolitical position. The Kaiser came in for special censure for leading Germany into a disastrous two-front war. Bismarck, by contrast, looked quite good, since he had always managed a more deft and subtle balance of power. In this manner, German decision makers had simply failed at realpolitik in either the Rochau or Bismarck sense. They had not carefully analyzed the situation, but stuck to a tough-guyish dogma. They had also failed to manage their enemies well.However, this criticism is less helpful than it seems. By praising Bismarckian power politics, Meinecke established an unfortunate pattern. Bad imperialism, like the Kaiser’s, was too flighty and too arrogant. There was a good imperialism though, that carefully managed conflict like Bismarck. That view makes it seem as though Bismarck was more calculating and more controlling than he really was, but also let his version of nationalism off the hook. The problem, historians like Meinecke implied, didn’t lie in German nationalism, but in the incompetence of the Kaiser. Bew claims that the “revival of Bismarckian hero worship” encouraged the belief that “Germany need only return to his ways to re-establish its dominance in Europe.” That impression among German tastemakers then “contributed to the undermining of any support for multilateralism and international law in the country after 1918.” Meinecke’s new version of realpolitik was thus destabilizing even as it aimed to be moderating.Perhaps more importantly, Meincke also revised his take on English hypocrisy. Meinecke now that that the English practiced “the most effective kind of Machiavellianism, which could be brought by the national Will of power-policy to become unconscious of itself, and to appear (not only to others, but also itself) as being pure humanity, candor and religion.” Their hypocrisy served as a powerful stimulant to the English spirit. They were able to act more freely, because they did not really understand the magnitude of their undertaking. One hears an echo of the Nietzschean superman who acts with a free spirit because he overlooks the consequences of his actions among the little people. By setting himself beyond good and evil - by giving no weight to mere morality - he unleashes his creative potential and learns to ignore the suffering he causes. What sounds like a condemnation of English character is in fact backhanded praise for German amoralism.But, Meinecke has straightforward praise for English semi-morality even reconciling himself to their dominance. As a nation in the middle, Germany needs “justice and not power,” which is a striking conclusion. In his view, the English empire and the American sphere of influence were both animated by the desire for trade and naval dominance not the destruction of Germany. They would of course expect concessions, but induction into the Anglosphere was bearable. The Anglo hypocrisy did color their empire after all and that was preferable to outright subjugation. France and Russia had no such compunction and Germany still needed some access to the broader world.Whatever its merits, the new version of realpolitik, produced by men like Meinecke or Max Weber, and its “subtle qualifications did not lodge themselves onto the popularized version of Realpolitik that was born anew, and fell, once again, into the Treitschkean trap of crude nationalism.” The confusion between realpolitik and the Machtpolitik was too advanced. And, German nationalists were not willing to accept a junior role in Europe. So long as they remained convinced that the German liberals had stabbed them in the back and that the other great powers were merely hypocritical, they had no plausible reason to step down from imperial ambitions. Martinetti, the Italian poet and prophet of fascism, captured the new spirit better in his repugnant Futurist Manifesto:

Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man...We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.

There’s none of Rochau’s liberal optimism or his scholar’s eye, none of Bismarck’s finesse, or Meinecke’s timid rapprochement with moralism. Martinetti, who wrote both the Futurista and the Fascist Manifestos, seems much more like the savage child Treitschke rightly mocked.Realpolitik has a troubled history to say the least. It had a hand in producing an ugly, ugly view of the world. But we should not entirely condemn it. Rochau’s realpolitik can help us understand what went wrong here, and, if we keep the nasty kind at bay, then it can help us with much more instead. Indulging in dark talk about bloody necessities tends to make itself more likely, but being realistic about the forces at work in political life can also make for more effective policy.I speak with such confidence, because Bew does not argue from concepts alone. His careful journey from inception, through transmission, to current (mis)understanding demonstrates his point. He doesn’t just argue it is a credible account, he shows us how it has happened all before. If nothing else, experiencing Bew’s method of mingled showing and interpreting would justify the read. He clearly takes ideas seriously in their own right while maintaining a careful watch on the real situations, interests, and attitudes that inform those ideas.Bew ends on a high note though. We can adapt the lessons of realpolitik to improve our political understanding. The history of the idea teaches us a lot about the degradation of hard-nosed realism into outright evil. We should do all in our power to avoid that course. Rochau’s realpolitik offers a simple but powerful set of tools for the political analyst. To start, one should observe the distribution of power, the socioeconomic realities, and the beliefs and values powerful in this society. Realpolitik also reminds us how valuable political modesty can be. Modesty isn’t sexy, but one shouldn’t forget that a more canny approach will allow dreams to survive the baking-heat of populist rage or the long chill of authoritarian suppression. Protests, speeches, conviction, and direct action aren’t enough. If your political program cannot mobilize people for sustained activity, survive fluctuations in passion, accommodate a diversity of views, and find footing in the real shape of economic and social relations, then it ceases to be good politics. It may be a fine piece of philosophy, literature, or collective therapy, but it isn’t action for the sake of public life. To insist otherwise leads to disappointment, disaster, or both.____Matt Ray is a philosophy graduate student. He blogs at Hedonaut.