A realism is a theory essentially about power and security.

States relentlessly seek power and security because they exist in a self-help system because in a
world where we can never trust anyone state don't want to be interdependent. Liberals believe
in interdependence thinks it leads to peace but realist tend to be very skeptical about
interdependence. who wants to be mutually dependent in a world that's very dangerous
essentially you know today's friend could be tomorrow's enemy and to the extent that that's
true you never know who's going to be alignedagainst you down the road or who's making plans
against you now so you can never have enough power like how much is enough power I don't
know you know who's gonna be lined up against me in ten years realists don't believe in sort of
utopian muddle-headed schemes that would provide a perpetual peace in the world based on
some notion of a natural harmony of interests among states instead realist see the world in
terms of tragedy and evil and essentially like the best you can hope for is that you know you
people choose the lesser evil and try to be as good as they can be in an evil world you know I
guess the bottom line is that you know realists may not be angels but in the real world angels
often turn out to brutes because you know if you're moralizing crusading saying you know we
don't like your human rights policies and we don't you know we don't like your regime the way
it's not Democratic enough it's not liberal enough well then you're going to get involved
everywhereand the problem with promoting democracy is it doesn't work you know first of
alland second of all you know it almost always leads to a quagmire again thereis no natural
harmony of interests in the world realists understand that so you just have to live with diversity
and I think liberals don't understand that most of American wars have been particularly since the
end of the Cold War I've been all about promoting democracy and human rights and liberals
would actually say that the only just war is one that promotes human rights whereas a realist
would say the onlY just war is one that promotes the national interest and if there are no threats
in the environment well then Yuri Trench so essentially you know if I had to give one sort of you
know view of what how realism sees the world it would be sort of a Hobbesian war of all against
all in a state of nature the state of nature of meaning there is no 911th it's just everyone out for
themselves which doesn't mean that war always Occurs it just means that the danger of war is
always lurking in the background of all international politics