Conflict Theory in Realism: Understanding Perpetual Power Struggles

International relations can look like a never-ending contest where survival is the only rule that truly matters. States build armies, sign treaties, break them, and watch each other with suspicion even in times of peace. For realists, this is not a flaw in the system that better diplomacy can fix. It is the system. Conflict theory in realism argues that disputes between nations are not accidents or failures of goodwill but the natural result of how the international order is built. To understand why, we need to look at three pillars of realist thought: an anarchic world, a pessimistic view of human nature, and the relentless pursuit of survival.

Anarchy as the foundation of conflict 🔗

The starting point of realist theory is the idea of anarchy. This does not mean chaos or disorder in the everyday sense. It refers to the absence of a central authority above states that can enforce rules and settle disputes. Within a country, there is a government, a police force, and courts to maintain order. In the international system, there is no equivalent world government with real power to compel states to behave.

Realists argue that the rules of international politics are dictated by this anarchic structure. Because no higher authority guarantees protection, states cannot rely on anyone else to keep them safe. This is the condition that scholars like Kenneth Waltz directly link to the continued occurrence of violence among nations.

Consider how India and Pakistan handle their border disputes. There is no global police force that can step in and definitively settle the matter. Each country must depend on its own military strength, its diplomatic skill, and its network of alliances to protect what it sees as its interests. This is anarchy in practice: not the absence of any order, but the absence of an enforcer standing above sovereign states.

The state of nature and the roots of mistrust 🔗

To explain what life under anarchy feels like, realists borrow a powerful idea from the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes. In his work Leviathan, Hobbes described a state of nature, a condition before any government exists, where individuals live without a common authority to keep them in check. In this state, he famously argued, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” marked by a war of every man against every man.

Realists apply this image to the world of states. Just as individuals in Hobbes’s state of nature could never fully trust one another, nations in an anarchic system live under constant uncertainty about each other’s intentions. A state can never be completely sure whether its neighbour is preparing for defence or planning aggression. This deep mistrust is not paranoia. It is a rational response to a world where guessing wrong about an enemy’s intentions can be fatal.

Why even peaceful states prepare for war 🔗

This logic explains a puzzle that confuses many people: why do states arm themselves even when no one has declared war? The realist answer is that in the context of anarchy, each state is uncertain about the intentions of others. Even if your neighbour is genuinely peaceful today, leadership can change, priorities can shift, and capabilities once built can be turned against you tomorrow. In such a world, the prudent move is to prepare for the worst, regardless of present friendliness.

Human nature and the will to power 🔗

While anarchy provides the stage, classical realists locate a deeper source of conflict within human beings themselves. Thinkers in this tradition, drawing on Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes, argue that humans are inherently egoistic and driven by an enduring desire for power. Because states are run by people, this flawed and power-seeking nature is projected onto the behaviour of states.

The most influential figure here is Hans Morgenthau, often regarded as the founder of modern classical realism. In his 1948 book Politics Among Nations, he argued that politics is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. For Morgenthau, the central concept for understanding world affairs is interest defined in terms of power. He saw the root of conflict in what he called the animus dominandi, the lust for power, which pushes humans, and the states they govern, to maintain, increase, or demonstrate their dominance over others.

From this perspective, conflict is not a problem that can be solved by education, prosperity, or better institutions. It is a permanent feature of political life because the drive for power is built into who we are. This is why classical realism is sometimes called human nature realism.

The security dilemma 🔗

Anarchy and human nature combine to produce one of the most important concepts in realist theory: the security dilemma. The idea is deceptively simple. When one state strengthens its military to feel safer, neighbouring states often perceive this build-up as a threat and respond by arming themselves in turn. The result is an arms race in which everyone ends up feeling less secure, even though each state was only trying to protect itself.

The tragedy of the security dilemma is that conflict can emerge even when no state intends aggression. The very means a country uses to make itself secure become the means by which others feel threatened. This helps explain why mistrust and tension can persist in international politics indefinitely, without anyone actually wanting war.

The Cold War as a textbook case 🔗

The clearest historical example is the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Both superpowers pursued nuclear weapons to guarantee their own survival, but each side’s actions to enhance its security were perceived as threatening by the other. This created a spiral of mistrust and ever-greater military buildup. Neither side could afford to stop, because stopping might mean falling behind a rival it could not trust. The security dilemma turned two states seeking safety into rivals locked in decades of dangerous competition.

Self-help and the priority of survival 🔗

If there is no one to call for help, you must help yourself. This is the principle of self-help, and it follows directly from anarchy. Since no higher authority is guaranteed to protect them, states must rely on their own resources to ensure their survival. States live in a context where, internationally, no one is in charge, so every state becomes responsible for its own security.

Survival is the supreme goal in realist thinking. Everything else, including economic gain, ideology, and moral commitments, is secondary to staying alive as a sovereign state. As Waltz observed, in a self-help system, considerations of security tend to push economic interests beneath political and strategic ones. A state will accept economic costs if doing so protects its independence and security.

Balance of power as a survival strategy 🔗

One of the main strategies states use to survive in an anarchic system is the balance of power. This describes a situation where states continuously make choices to increase their own capabilities while preventing any single state from becoming too dominant. If one country grows too powerful, like Nazi Germany in the 1930s, other states tend to form alliances to check it and restore a balance. Realists see balance of power not as a guarantee of peace but as a way to delay conflict in a world where war is always possible.

Classical realism versus neo-realism 🔗

Not all realists agree on where conflict ultimately comes from. This disagreement produced two major branches of the theory. Classical realists, as we have seen, trace conflict to flawed human nature. Neo-realists, also called structural realists, shift the focus entirely to the structure of the international system.

Kenneth Waltz challenged the reliance on human nature, which he considered too vague and impossible to measure scientifically. In his 1979 book Theory of International Politics, he argued that states pursue power not because of any inner human flaw, but because the anarchic structure of the system compels them to. For Waltz, you could place any state, run by any kind of leader, into an anarchic system, and it would still be driven toward self-help and balancing behaviour.

The practical difference is significant. For classical realists, conflict springs from inside us. For neo-realists, conflict springs from the situation states find themselves in. Yet both arrive at the same sobering conclusion: in a world without a central authority, perpetual power struggle is the default condition of international politics.

Realism and the pursuit of national interest 🔗

The concept that ties realist theory to actual foreign policy is national interest. Realists argue that states act primarily to advance their own interests, defined mainly in terms of security, survival, and power, rather than for moral or ideological reasons. A government’s first duty is to protect its people and its sovereignty, and this calculation drives most of its decisions on the world stage.

India’s foreign policy offers a useful illustration of realist logic at work. The doctrine of strategic autonomy reflects a determination to safeguard independence in decision-making and to avoid becoming dependent on any single great power. Analysts have described it as a strategy aimed at protecting strategic assets and freedom of action against external pressure. When India balances its relationships between the United States and Russia, or invests heavily in defence to manage the perceived threat from China, it is behaving very much as realist theory would predict: prioritising its own security and freedom above ideological commitments.

The criticisms realists must face 🔗

Realism is powerful, but it is far from the final word. Critics argue that by assuming the worst about human nature and the international system, realists may help create the very confrontational world they claim only to describe. If leaders act with constant suspicion and reach for force because a theory tells them this is rational, they may be making conflict more likely rather than simply observing it.

Constructivist scholars push back even harder. They accept that anarchy exists, but argue that its effects depend on the meanings we attach to it. For them, war is not inevitable. Conflict can be overcome by changing how states understand themselves and each other. Liberals add that trade, international institutions, and shared democratic values can reduce the likelihood of war in ways realism underestimates. These critiques remind us that realism captures something important about power and survival, but it is one lens among several, not a complete picture of how nations behave.

What do you think? Does the realist view that conflict is permanent reflect an honest reading of history, or does it risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes the world more dangerous? And when you look at India’s foreign policy choices today, do you see the cold logic of survival at work, or something more shaped by values and cooperation?

References

1. https://www.e-ir.info/2011/08/29/realist-and-constructivist-approaches-to-anarchy/
2. https://www.e-ir.info/2010/02/15/the-political-realism-of-thucydides-and-thomas-hobbes/
3. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/
4. https://dansmithsblog.com/2022/11/03/the-idea-of-security/
5. https://dennana.in/2024/03/29/meaning-and-nature-of-ir-theory/
6. https://www.e-ir.info/2018/02/27/introducing-realism-in-international-relations-theory/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations)
8. https://warontherocks.com/2020/11/strategic-autonomy-and-u-s-indian-relations/