>>>>Dean Grillot: We'll begin our examination
of international relations theory with one of the most dominant approaches in the field,
and that is realist theory. Realists believe that states are primary actors. So think about
all those actors we've already talked about in this class: individual actors, international
organizations. To realists, these actors are not as important as are states, and particularly
great power states. Think also back to our discussions of anarchy. International anarchy,
meaning that there's no central authority in the global community, realists are particularly
concerned with the international anarchical environment in which states operate. The international
anarchical environment contributes to what realists call self-help. Remember when we
talked about if you're Trinidad and Tobago and somebody invades you and you pickup the
phone and call 911 and somebody may come or not come to help you? Realists suggest that
all states have to be capable of helping themselves. So international anarchy leads to a self-help
system. The global community is one that's very uncertain, and to realists, it's fraught
with all kinds of potential conflict, potential enemies, and so therefore states have to be
prepared to help themselves, to protect themselves, and to defend their sovereignty. States must
be prepared to arm themselves in order to protect themselves. As you might imagine,
this could lead to what we would call an arms race or a conflict spiral. It's hard to distinguish
between offensive and defensive capability. So think about the gun that one person might
have at home under the pillow to protect their home and their property and their family.
That gun could also be used to offend their neighbor, or to go down the street and and
rob a liquor store. It's very difficult to distinguish between the offensive and the
defensive capability of that weapon. The same is true for states. When states develop military
capability, it's very difficult for other states to know whether they intend to use
those weapons for offensive or defensive purposes. So realists suggest that because of this offensive/defensive
dilemma, they race against each other to arm themselves in order to protect themselves
in this self-help environment. Now newer forms of realism, what we might call neorealism,
emphasizes power in the global community and power among states, but it looks at the distribution
of power across the global community. Instead of focusing on aggressive behavior among states
and how states might be capable of defending themselves or offending others, neorealists
are really looking at the systemic nature of power distributions. So they're going to
look at this concept called polarity: unipolarity, bipolarity, and multi-polarity. That has to
do with the distribution of power across the entire global community. Is power concentrated
in the hands of a couple of powers balancing each other out, like in a bipolar system?
Or is power concentrated in the hands of many, like you would find in a multi-polar system?
So neorealists or what we might call structural realists tend to focus on that distribution
of power rather than individual state power. This has implications for what we call offensive
and defensive realism; distinctions between the kind of power that you need to develop
and the amount of it. So a defensive realist, for example, might focus on just minimal levels
of security. "Am I secure enough to avoid any kind of attack, any kind of interference
in my country?" And an offense realist is suggesting that it's more important to be
able to dominate others and you need to have enough power in order to influence others
around the world. So even within neorealism there are distinctions we can make between
offensive and defensive capability. So now that we've explored both realist and neorealist
approaches in international relations-- let's put those lenses on. Remember how he talked
about constructing lenses? Let's put on our realist and neorealist lenses and look at
the global community. Look at issues like nuclear weapons development in Iran militarization
in China. If you're wearing your realist lenses, how would you analyze those particular decisions,
and how would you respond?