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Advantages Of Defensive Realists

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Power is the key factor for all Realists. However, there are also some diversities within them about the idea of ‘’why do states want power?’’ Classical realists related this with human nature but structural realists are associated it with international system. Every state should pursue power in order to survive in the anarchy of international system according to structural realists. There are some assumptions between structural realists to get power. One of them is about anarchy of international system which means there is no higher authority above states. Another assumption is about security dilemma which means that a state cannot be sure about the intentions of other states whether they focus on use of force or not. The other assumption …show more content…

Defensive realists usually are in favour of defender side because they claim that the state which tries to maximize its power will be defeated in a series of wars at the end. So, the important thing is to keep its position in balance of power. Moreover, defensive realists claim that conquest is not beneficial because of nationalism. The reason is people who live in conquered places can rebel against conqueror. Defensive realists believe that conquest cause lots of troubles instead of benefits. This structure of international system should lead states to limit their request towards maximization of power. If states accept this principle, there will be no security competition and there will be no great powers and central wars. However, the offensive realists do not share the ideas of defensive realists. They claim that the coalitions which are formed to provide balancing are inefficient. Defensive realists and offensive realists have a common ground in terms of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons do not provide advantage for offensive purposes because nuclear weapons are disincentives to go into war if their capabilities are equal. Also, both offensive realists and defensive realists agree on nuclear armed states do not go into conventional war because of the threat of nuclear

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