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Might makes right

"Might makes right" is a maxim encapsulating the view that superior physical, military, or coercive power inherently validates actions and establishes what passes for justice or legitimacy, supplanting appeals to abstract morality or impartial law in contexts lacking higher enforcement.^[1]^[2] Articulated in ancient Greek thought, it appears in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, where Athenian envoys in the Melian Dialogue declare that "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," reflecting the causal primacy of force in interstate anarchy.^[2]^[3] Similarly, in Plato's Republic, the sophist Thrasymachus contends that "justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger," positing rulers' interests as the true measure of right amid power imbalances.^[1] The principle's defining characteristic lies in its descriptive realism: empirically, throughout history, dominant actors—whether empires, states, or factions—have imposed their wills through overwhelming force, as seen in conquests from the Athenian subjugation of Melos to the expansion of later powers, where victory retroactively sanctifies claims regardless of prior ethical protests.^[2]^[3] In international relations theory, it underpins political realism, which views global politics as a self-help system driven by states' pursuit of security and power, with thinkers like Hans Morgenthau emphasizing the "struggle for power" rooted in human nature's drive for dominance, and structural realists like Kenneth Waltz highlighting anarchy's role in compelling balance-of-power dynamics over moral suasion.^[2] This contrasts with normative critiques, such as Socrates' refutation in the Republic that true justice benefits all parties, including the powerful, by fostering stability rather than exploitative tyranny.^[1] Controversies arise from its perceived amoral cynicism, often decried as justifying aggression or totalitarianism, yet its causal insight endures: in ungoverned domains, outcomes hinge on capacity to compel compliance, as evidenced by recurring patterns of imperial overreach and resistance failures absent countervailing strength.^[2] While moral philosophers privilege universal principles, realists maintain that power asymmetries render such ideals subordinate to pragmatic enforcement, informing analyses of conflicts where ethical rhetoric yields to material capabilities.^[2]

Conceptual Foundations

Definition and Core Principles

"Might makes right" denotes the assertion that superior physical, military, or coercive power serves as the decisive factor in establishing what is deemed just, rightful, or authoritative, overriding appeals to abstract morality or ethical norms.^[4] This principle posits that outcomes in human affairs, particularly in contexts devoid of enforceable higher authority, are ultimately dictated by the capacity to impose one's will through strength rather than by reasoned consensus or universal principles.^[5] It functions both descriptively—observing that power disparities reliably shape results—and prescriptively, implying that such dominance inherently validates the victor's claims without need for further justification.^[1] At its core, the doctrine emphasizes power's role as the arbiter in anarchic environments, where no supranational enforcer exists to uphold ideals independently of force; here, the powerful act according to their interests, while the weaker acquiesce to necessity.^[5] This contrasts sharply with idealistic frameworks, which maintain that moral truths or natural rights persist and constrain behavior irrespective of enforcement capabilities, as seen in Kantian deontology or Lockean social contract theory, where justice derives from rational universality rather than empirical dominance.^[6] The principle underscores causal realism in social dynamics: absent coercive equilibrium, disparities in might translate directly into control over resources, territories, and norms, rendering ethical abstractions secondary to tangible leverage.^[7] The concept traces to ancient Greek sophistic thought, exemplified in Thucydides' account of the Melian Dialogue (circa 416 BCE), where Athenian envoys encapsulate it as "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," rejecting Melian pleas for justice in favor of pragmatic power assessment.^[5] Similarly, sophists like Thrasymachus argued in Plato's Republic (circa 380 BCE) that justice equates to the advantage of the stronger, framing law and right as tools of the ruling class.^[1] The English aphorism "might makes right" emerged in the 19th century, distilling these ideas into a concise maxim reflective of realist philosophy, though the underlying logic predates it by millennia in Western intellectual tradition.^[8]

Philosophical Formulations

In Plato's Republic (c. 380 BCE), the sophist Thrasymachus defines justice as "the interest of the stronger," positing that rulers enact laws to advance their own advantage, rendering obedience to such laws equivalent to serving the powerful's will.^[9]^[10] This formulation derives from a first-principles observation of governance: authority stems from superior force or capacity to coerce, making moral claims contingent on the victor's ability to impose them. Thrasymachus extends this to argue that injustice benefits the strong more than justice, as it allows exploitation without restraint, reflecting a view of human interactions as inherently competitive where power, not abstract equity, resolves disputes.^[9] A parallel argument appears in Plato's Gorgias, where Callicles champions a "natural right" under which the stronger inherently dominate the weaker, dismissing conventional laws as artificial constraints that equalize the superior with the inferior. Drawing on empirical patterns in nature—such as predators prevailing over prey—Callicles contends that hierarchy arises causally from differences in strength and ability, rendering any equalization a violation of this order; thus, the capable should acquire more resources and rule without apology. This perspective prioritizes descriptive realism about human capacities over normative ideals, implying that ethical systems not aligned with power dynamics lack causal efficacy. Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (1532) advances a pragmatic endorsement of power's primacy, advising rulers to emulate the lion's ferocity and the fox's cunning when morality conflicts with state preservation, as effective governance demands results over virtue.^[11]^[12] Machiavelli divorces political success from ethical absolutes, arguing from historical evidence that princes who cling to moral scruples invite ruin, whereas those wielding force decisively—such as through calculated cruelty to deter threats—secure lasting authority.^[11] This rests on a causal analysis of fortune and human frailty: power must counter unpredictable adversities and self-interested subjects, rendering "right" as whatever sustains dominion amid relentless rivalry.^[12] Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) frames might as the enforcer of order in a state of nature characterized by mutual suspicion and perpetual conflict, where individuals' equal vulnerability to death drives preemptive aggression absent a superior power.^[13] To escape this "war of all against all," rational actors covenant to surrender rights to an absolute sovereign whose coercive might guarantees compliance, transforming descriptive power imbalances into normative legitimacy through enforced peace.^[14] Hobbes grounds this in mechanistic psychology: self-preservation compels deference to the strongest arbiter, as unaided contracts dissolve without sanction, making authority's foundation not consent alone but the credible threat of force.^[13] Philosophical treatments of "might makes right" distinguish descriptive claims—that power empirically dictates outcomes in authority disputes, as seen in ungoverned human tendencies toward dominance hierarchies—from normative prescriptions that raw force ought to define justice irrespective of consequences.^[15] Thrasymachus and Callicles lean descriptive, inferring from observed ruler-subject dynamics that ethical norms rationalize post-hoc the victor's interests, while Hobbes and Machiavelli incorporate normative elements by advocating structures where might stabilizes society against anarchy's causal logic.^[15] This duality underscores a core tension: if human nature prioritizes survival amid scarcity, power's role appears inevitable, yet endorsing it normatively risks perpetuating instability unless channeled through institutionalized force.^[15]

Historical Development

Ancient Origins

The Melian Dialogue, documented by the historian Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, constitutes a foundational instance of the "might makes right" rationale in classical antiquity, occurring during Athens' siege of the neutral island of Melos in 416 BCE. Athenian representatives rejected Melian pleas for autonomy and justice, declaring that "right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," thereby prioritizing coercive necessity over moral equity to secure imperial control.^[16]^[3] This exchange underscored the causal primacy of raw power in interstate relations, as Athens executed the conquest and enslaved survivors to deter resistance amid broader strategic pressures. Thucydides' chronicle of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) furnishes empirical data illustrating how power imbalances repeatedly supplanted ethical restraints, with Athenian imperialism—fueled by fear of rivals like Sparta—driving violations of treaties and norms, such as the unprovoked subjugation of allies.^[17]^[18] Sophist philosophers reinforced this realist outlook by contesting idealistic ethics; for instance, Callicles in Plato's Gorgias contended that nature sanctions the superior's dominance, where the stronger rightly appropriates more, dismissing conventional justice as a convention of the weak that Socratic virtue obscures.^[19]^[20] These views drew from observed conflicts, where force, not abstract right, resolved disputes among poleis. Aristotle, in his Politics, advanced a countervailing framework of natural right, positing that true justice derives from hierarchical structures aligned with human telos, wherein capable rulers govern for communal flourishing rather than arbitrary might.^[21]^[22] Nevertheless, Greek historical contingencies frequently belied this ideal, as Sparta's post-war hegemony (404–371 BCE) demonstrated: having vanquished Athens, Sparta enforced subservience through brutal interventions, including backing the Thirty Tyrants' reign of terror in Athens, which executed hundreds and confiscated properties to consolidate oligarchic control irrespective of prior pacts or equitable claims.^[23]^[24] Such dominance affirmed power's practical override of normative justice in antiquity's anarchic interstate order.

Medieval to Enlightenment Thinkers

In medieval feudal Europe, political authority often derived from military strength and personal loyalties rather than abstract moral universals, as lords and kings enforced claims through armed retinues and alliances that prioritized survival over ethical consistency.^[25] Feudal fragmentation meant that weaker vassals yielded to stronger overlords, with oaths of fealty frequently overridden by conquest or betrayal, illustrating a pragmatic acceptance of power dynamics over idealized rights.^[26] This realpolitik persisted despite Christian doctrines of just rule, as empirical outcomes—such as the consolidation of territories through warfare—demonstrated that effective dominion rested on coercive capacity.^[27] William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), through his nominalist philosophy, further eroded confidence in universal essences or inherent rights by arguing that general concepts like justice exist merely as mental constructs or names, not independent realities, thereby shifting emphasis to particular wills and contingencies that favor the powerful.^[28] Ockham's separation of papal and secular authority, rooted in divine command over natural universals, implied that legitimacy arose from enforceable papal or royal edicts rather than transcendent norms, aligning with feudal practices where might secured papal endorsements or royal charters.^[29] The rise of absolutism in the 17th century exemplified this continuity, as monarchs like Louis XIV of France (r. 1643–1715) centralized power through military bureaucracy and propaganda, claiming divine right but deriving de facto legitimacy from unyielding control over resources and dissent.^[30] Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and expansionist wars demonstrated that royal will, backed by 400,000 troops at peak mobilization, defined tolerable governance, subordinating religious or legal ideals to state enforcement.^[31] During the Enlightenment, Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) advanced natural law as innate to human sociability, yet applied it to sovereign states where enforcement depended on reciprocal power equilibria rather than moral suasion alone, as seen in his justification of defensive wars and trade rights amid Dutch-Spanish conflicts.^[32] John Locke (1632–1704), in his consent-based theory, posited government as a trust to protect natural rights against anarchy, but explicitly required a monopoly on coercive force—via police and military—to compel compliance, acknowledging that without such might, the state of nature's inconveniences would prevail.^[33] Thus, even contractual legitimacy hinged on the practical supremacy of organized violence over individual or factional power.^[34]

19th and 20th Century Evolutions

In the late 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche advanced a philosophical reframing of might through his doctrine of the will to power, articulated in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886), which depicted it not as crude domination but as the vital, creative force propelling life's self-overcoming and expansion beyond mere survival.^[35]^[36] This perspective positioned strength as inherently affirmative, contrasting with prior moral condemnations of power-seeking as vice. Paralleling Nietzsche, Social Darwinism applied evolutionary principles to human societies, with Herbert Spencer coining "survival of the fittest" in Principles of Biology (1864) to argue that competitive dominance in social, economic, and imperial contexts reflected natural superiority, thereby rationalizing laissez-faire policies and European colonial expansions as inevitable progress.^[37] Early 20th-century revolutionary and totalitarian movements operationalized might as a pragmatic and ideological imperative for state survival and aggrandizement. Vladimir Lenin, in consolidating Bolshevik control after the October Revolution of 1917, prioritized power retention over ideological purity, as seen in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), where Soviet Russia ceded over 1 million square kilometers and 62 million people to Central Powers to extricate from World War I and focus on suppressing internal opposition during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922).^[38] This maneuver exemplified realpolitik, enabling the regime's endurance through force against White armies and foreign interventions, with Red Army victories securing Soviet dominance by 1922.^[38] Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy (1922–1943) elevated might to a doctrinal cornerstone, proclaiming in The Doctrine of Fascism (1932, co-authored with Giovanni Gentile) that life entails perpetual struggle, demanding active engagement, virile resolve, and conquest to forge national greatness, with the state embodying absolute strength to subordinate individuals and justify territorial ambitions like the invasion of Ethiopia (1935–1936).^[39]^[40] Fascism thus fused might with vitality, viewing expansion—evidenced by annexations in Albania (1939) and Albania's integration into the Italian Empire—as the natural assertion of superior will against weaker entities. Post-World War II, amid the onset of the Cold War (1947–1991), classical realism revived emphasis on might in interstate relations, with Hans Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations (1948) positing power as the irreducible currency of diplomacy and national interest, influencing analyses of superpower rivalries where direct confrontation was deterred by nuclear arsenals but manifested in proxy conflicts such as the Korean War (1950–1953), involving over 2.7 million military deaths as U.S.-led UN forces countered Soviet- and Chinese-backed North Korea.^[41]^[41] This framework underscored empirical patterns of state behavior prioritizing relative power gains, as in U.S. containment strategies against Soviet influence in over 40 proxy engagements worldwide.^[41]

Applications in Realism and Power Politics

Theoretical Frameworks in International Relations

Classical realism, as articulated by Hans Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations (1948), posits that international politics fundamentally revolves around the pursuit of power, with national interest defined in terms of power capabilities to ensure state survival and security. Morgenthau argued that states, acting rationally in an anarchic system, prioritize power accumulation because human nature drives political actors to seek control, rendering moral or ideological appeals secondary to empirical necessities of dominance. This framework underscores that without superior might, states cannot reliably defend interests, as alliances or norms dissolve under pressure from stronger adversaries. Structural realism, developed by Kenneth Waltz in Theory of International Politics (1979), shifts focus to systemic anarchy as the causal driver compelling states to maintain a balance of power for self-preservation.^[2] Waltz contended that the distribution of capabilities in the international structure forces states into security-seeking behaviors, where relative power determines outcomes, and any imbalance invites aggression or preemptive action. In this view, anarchy precludes reliable cooperation without offsetting might, as states cannot trust others' restraint absent verifiable enforcement through power parity. John Mearsheimer's offensive realism, outlined in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), extends this by asserting that great powers inherently seek to maximize relative power to achieve hegemony, given uncertainty about intentions in anarchy. Mearsheimer argues states are compelled to offensive postures because defensive strategies risk exploitation by revisionist actors, leading to inevitable competition where might dictates survival probabilities.^[42] Realists critique liberal institutionalism for overlooking enforcement deficits, maintaining that institutions like treaties or organizations lack independent coercive power and reflect underlying distributions of might rather than constraining it.^[43] Joseph Grieco, among others, highlights that states prioritize relative gains over absolute benefits, rendering institutions epiphenomenal without military backing to compel compliance.^[44] Empirical evidence supports this primacy of might, as seen in the United Nations Security Council's veto mechanism, where the five permanent members' (P5) ability to block resolutions preserves their post-World War II power distribution, preventing majority overrides that could undermine their interests.^[45] This structure empirically demonstrates how raw power asymmetries sustain institutional arrangements, with veto usage—over 280 instances since 1946—prioritizing P5 security over collective norms.^[46]

Historical and Empirical Case Studies

The Roman Empire expanded from a city-state to control much of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between the 3rd century BCE and the 2nd century CE through relentless military conquests that supplanted local governance and rights with Roman authority. Conquered peoples, such as the Gauls under Julius Caesar's campaigns from 58 to 50 BCE, faced subjugation where tribal autonomy was overridden by Roman legions' superior organization and tactics, resulting in the imposition of Roman law, taxation, and military conscription despite initial local resistance. This pattern repeated in expansions into Britain (43 CE) and Dacia (101-106 CE), where military dominance dictated territorial claims and administrative control, integrating or marginalizing indigenous systems based solely on Rome's capacity to enforce them. In the 13th century, Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire exemplified rule established purely by conquest, unifying nomadic tribes by 1206 CE and subsequently invading the Jin Dynasty in northern China (1211-1215 CE), Khwarezmian Empire (1219-1221 CE), and beyond, amassing an empire spanning 24 million square kilometers by sheer force of arms. Mongol hordes, organized into decimal units with composite bows and mobility advantages, overran fortified cities like Baghdad in 1258 CE under Hulagu Khan, slaughtering populations and installing puppet rulers or direct governance where opposition persisted, demonstrating that diplomatic overtures yielded to battlefield supremacy.^[47] Estimates indicate over 40 million deaths across these campaigns, underscoring how military might nullified existing sovereignties without regard for prior legal or cultural claims.^[48] The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 formalized European powers' partition of Africa, allocating territories based on demonstrated capacity for occupation rather than African consent or existing polities, leading to the Scramble for Africa where military expeditions secured claims. Fourteen nations, led by Germany and attended by Britain, France, and Portugal, adopted the principle of "effective occupation," requiring powers to notify claims and prove control—often via gunboat diplomacy and colonial armies—resulting in Africa's division into 50 states ignoring ethnic boundaries and prior rights.^[49] By 1914, Europeans controlled 90% of the continent, with partitions like Britain's conquest of Sudan (1896-1898) or Germany's in Namibia (1904-1908) succeeding through superior firepower against local forces, evidencing power as the arbiter of colonial legitimacy.^[50] India's 1971 intervention in East Pakistan illustrates post-colonial application, where diplomatic appeals to Pakistan's military junta failed to halt the crisis following the March 1971 crackdown, prompting India's December 3-16 military offensive that decisively defeated Pakistani forces and enabled Bangladesh's independence. Despite international resolutions and India's prior sheltering of 10 million refugees, Pakistan's refusal to negotiate politically left military action as the effective resolver, with Indian armored divisions and air superiority capturing 93,000 prisoners and achieving objectives in 13 days against a diplomatically isolated adversary. This outcome contrasted failed prior mediation by the UN and U.S., highlighting how force prevailed where appeals to norms did not.^[51]

Criticisms and Moral Counterarguments

Ethical and Normative Objections

Deontological ethics posits that moral obligations derive from categorical imperatives or inherent duties, rendering "might makes right" invalid as a foundation for legitimacy, since rightness stems from rational universality rather than empirical power. Immanuel Kant argued that actions are moral only if their maxims can be willed as universal laws, independent of consequences or coercive force, thereby rejecting any conflation of strength with ethical justification.^[52] Similarly, natural law traditions, as articulated by Thomas Aquinas, assert that moral principles are embedded in human rational nature, with the primary precept that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil avoided," transcending contingent power dynamics and deriving instead from eternal law.^[53] These frameworks maintain that rights and wrongs exist objectively, irrespective of who holds superior might, as might merely enforces but does not constitute moral validity. Post-World War II human rights instruments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, sought to establish universal norms that ostensibly supersede power politics, proclaiming inherent dignity and rights for all individuals without distinction. However, critics contend that such declarations often function as hegemonic impositions, reflecting Western liberal priorities and lacking enforceability absent underlying power asymmetries, as evidenced by persistent violations in non-compliant regimes.^[54] ^[55] These normative objections, while emphasizing moral absolutes, frequently falter empirically when divorced from coercive backing, as idealistic restraint invites exploitation by aggressors unburdened by similar scruples. The British and French policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s, conceding territories like the Sudetenland via the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938, exemplifies how moralistic deference to supposed universal norms enabled Hitler's expansionism, culminating in the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the broader conflagration of World War II.^[56] ^[57] Without might to underpin ethical claims, such approaches historically yield to raw power, underscoring a causal disconnect between deontological ideals and real-world outcomes.

Legal and Institutional Challenges

The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the foundational principle of state sovereignty in international law, ending the Thirty Years' War and prohibiting external interference in domestic affairs while promoting non-intervention among equal sovereigns.^[58] ^[59] Subsequent developments, including the UN Charter in 1945, codified norms against aggression and territorial conquest, yet enforcement has consistently faltered against powerful states, as sovereignty shields violators with veto power in bodies like the UN Security Council.^[60] Strong actors, such as Russia in its 2014 annexation of Crimea or China's claims in the South China Sea, routinely disregard these norms without facing binding repercussions, underscoring that legal constraints derive efficacy from the relative might of enforcers rather than inherent authority.^[61] The International Criminal Court (ICC), established by the Rome Statute in 1998 and operational since 2002, exemplifies institutional efforts to impose accountability for war crimes and aggression, but its jurisdiction remains severely limited against major powers.^[62] The United States, Russia, and China—three permanent UN Security Council members—have not ratified the treaty or have actively opposed it, rendering the ICC unable to prosecute their nationals without state cooperation, as seen in the US's 2002 "unsigned but unsigned" stance and sanctions threats against ICC probes into American actions in Afghanistan.^[63] ^[64] Russia withdrew recognition after the ICC's 2023 warrants for its leadership over Ukraine, while China rejects the court's legitimacy outright, highlighting how institutional mechanisms buckle under the weight of non-participation by dominant states.^[65] Democratic peace theory posits that liberal democracies rarely war with one another due to shared norms, transparency, and domestic accountability, offering an institutional alternative to raw power dynamics.^[66] However, this restraint depends on military alliances for deterrence, as evidenced by NATO's collective defense clause (Article 5), invoked once after 9/11, which binds 32 members through overwhelming combined firepower rather than legal fiat alone.^[67] Alliances like NATO sustain democratic stability by projecting might, yet their effectiveness hinges on the commitment of leading powers, such as the US providing over 70% of alliance capabilities, revealing institutional peace as an extension of enforceable superiority.^[68] In practice, post-World War II institutions often veil power asymmetries under "rules-based" rhetoric, with the US-led order enforcing compliance through military preponderance, as in interventions justified under UN mandates but executed via American dominance.^[69] This framework, including sanctions regimes and naval patrols, maintains order not through impartial law but via the credible threat of force, where weaker states adhere while challengers like Iran or North Korea test limits until confronted by superior coalitions.^[70] Empirical patterns show that legal and institutional barriers erode when might shifts, as during the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 or Russia's 2022 Ukraine invasion, affirming that such structures constrain only insofar as they align with the interests and capacities of dominant enforcers.

Defenses Through Empirical Realism

Observational Evidence from State Behavior

In the anarchic international system, states consistently prioritize military power for deterrence and survival, as evidenced by escalating arms races throughout history. During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union engaged in a prolonged arms buildup, with U.S. nuclear arsenal peaking at over 31,000 warheads by 1967 and Soviet forces similarly expanding, which mutual deterrence theorists argue prevented direct superpower conflict despite ideological tensions.^[71] Empirical models of state behavior, including game-theoretic simulations, demonstrate that such races arise from security dilemmas where one state's defensive arming prompts reciprocal escalation to maintain balance, a pattern observed in contemporary U.S.-China military competitions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.^[72] Global military expenditure reached $2,718 billion in 2024, a 9.4% increase from the prior year, with the top five spenders—United States, China, Russia, Germany, and India—accounting for 60% of the total, correlating directly with their capacity to project influence and deter aggression.^[73] Weak or failing states illustrate how diminished coercive capacity invites predation by stronger internal or external actors. In the breakup of Yugoslavia during the 1990s, the central government's erosion of authority amid economic collapse and ethnic rivalries enabled armed militias—such as Serb forces under Slobodan Milošević—to seize territories through superior firepower, resulting in wars from 1991 to 1999 that redrew borders along lines of military dominance rather than legal claims.^[74] Over 140,000 deaths and millions displaced ensued, with outcomes determined by battlefield successes, as weaker entities like Bosnian Muslims initially succumbed until external intervention shifted the balance.^[74] Similar patterns appear in other fragile polities, where the absence of monopolized force allows warlords or factions to override institutional "rights," underscoring that normative appeals falter without enforcement. Efforts to transplant rights or governance via intervention without sustained military commitment routinely collapse, revealing the primacy of power in sustaining order. In Libya following the 2011 NATO-led overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, the interim authorities lacked the force to suppress rival militias, leading to a civil war by 2014 where armed groups fragmented the state and eroded human rights protections, including widespread enslavement and trafficking in migrant detention centers.^[75] The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 similarly saw the Taliban rapidly overrun government-held areas, nullifying two decades of institution-building as 20 years of military presence evaporated without residual deterrence, resulting in the swift abrogation of women's rights and minority protections.^[76] These cases empirically affirm that proclaimed rights dissolve absent the might to defend them, as opportunistic actors exploit power vacuums in line with realist predictions of self-help dynamics.^[77]

Causal Mechanisms and Stability Arguments

Hegemonic stability theory posits that a dominant power's military and economic preponderance causally underpins international order by supplying public goods such as secure trade routes and enforceable rules, which weaker actors alone cannot sustain.^[78] In the post-World War II era, the United States leveraged its nuclear monopoly—achieved with the first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945—and subsequent arsenal expansion to deter challenges and facilitate institutions like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (established January 1, 1948), enabling unprecedented global commerce volumes that reached $62 trillion in goods and services by 2022.^[79] This mechanism counters instability from power vacuums, where multipolar competition historically escalates to conflict, by concentrating enforcement capacity in one actor willing to bear disproportionate costs for systemic benefits.^[80] Deterrence through mutually assured destruction (MAD) operates as a causal stabilizer by rendering aggression prohibitively costly, as each side's second-strike capability ensures retaliatory devastation exceeding any conceivable gains.^[81] Formalized in U.S. strategy by the 1960s amid Soviet nuclear parity—evidenced by the Cuban Missile Crisis resolution on October 28, 1962, without escalation—this doctrine has empirically forestalled direct great-power warfare for eight decades, with no nuclear-armed states engaging in mutual combat since 1945.^[82] The mechanism's logic parallels evolutionary dynamics, where group selection favors cohesive units with robust defensive capabilities; ethnographic data from small-scale societies indicate that intergroup warfare selects for cultural traits enhancing collective strength, such as parochial altruism, allowing "strong" tribes to outcompete fragmented rivals over millennia. Idealistic reliance on moral suasion falters causally because international interactions resemble iterated prisoner's dilemmas, where unilateral restraint invites exploitation by defectors prioritizing short-term gains over collective norms.^[83] Game-theoretic models demonstrate that without enforceable commitments—typically backed by superior might—cooperation collapses as rational actors anticipate free-riding, yielding suboptimal equilibria like arms races rather than disarmament; historical simulations confirm that power asymmetries resolve such dilemmas by enabling credible punishment of cheaters, stabilizing outcomes where norms alone dissolve.^[84] Thus, might enforces the reciprocity essential for order, preempting the chaos of unchecked opportunism.^[85]

Contemporary Relevance and Debates

Modern Geopolitical Conflicts

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, exemplifies the role of military power in overriding international norms of sovereignty, as Russian forces have seized and held approximately 19% of Ukraine's territory as of October 2025, including advances in areas like Pokrovsk despite Ukrainian counteroffensives.^[86]^[87] The United States has provided over $66.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, enabling defensive operations, yet front-line stalemates and incremental Russian gains persist without direct NATO escalation.^[88] Western sanctions, targeting Russia's energy exports and financial systems, have imposed costs—such as reduced oil revenues post-2022 price caps—but failed to induce economic collapse, with Russia's GDP expanding 4.3% in 2024 and projected at 1.2% for 2025 amid wartime adaptations like parallel imports and alliances with non-Western partners.^[89]^[90] This resilience underscores how relative military endurance, rather than isolated economic pressure or aid, sustains territorial control in prolonged conflicts. In the South China Sea, China's militarization of disputed features since 2013 illustrates power projection superseding legal arbitration, as Beijing has constructed over 3,200 hectares of artificial islands equipped with airstrips, missile systems, and naval facilities in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos, enabling dominance over contested waters claimed by multiple nations.^[91] These bases support China's "nine-dash line" assertions, dismissed by a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling favoring Philippine claims, yet Beijing has ignored the decision and escalated patrols, including coast guard confrontations with Philippine vessels as recently as August 2025.^[92] Regional challengers like Vietnam and the Philippines have protested through diplomatic channels and limited military buildups, but China's superior naval capacity—bolstered by carrier groups and anti-ship missiles—has deterred effective countermeasures, allowing resource extraction and fishing enforcement aligned with its territorial ambitions. The Israel-Hamas conflict, ignited by Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack killing over 1,200 Israelis, further demonstrates might determining operational outcomes amid multipolar critiques of Western-led order, as Israel's military campaigns have dismantled much of Hamas's infrastructure in Gaza, including tunnel networks and leadership targets, despite over 40,000 Palestinian casualties reported by Gaza authorities.^[93] United Nations bodies, including a September 2025 commission report, have accused Israel of genocide and war crimes, echoing broader condemnations of disproportionate force, yet enforcement remains absent without Israel's consent or external military intervention.^[94] This dynamic reflects 2024-2025 discourse on eroding U.S. unipolarity, with rising powers like China and Russia framing such actions as "might makes right" in forums like BRICS, where sanctions and aid prove insufficient absent credible escalation threats, prioritizing raw power balances in a fragmenting global system.^[95]^[96]

Implications for Policy and Democracy

In policy formulation, realist principles underscore that perceived weakness in democratic states signals vulnerability to authoritarian aggression, necessitating robust military capabilities and alliances to maintain deterrence. Empirical trends confirm this, as global military expenditure surged to $2,718 billion in 2024—a 9.4 percent real-term increase, the steepest since at least the Cold War era—driven by escalating tensions with regimes like Russia and China, with NATO members collectively boosting spending to counter such threats.^[97] ^[98] U.S. outlays alone reached $997 billion, comprising 66 percent of NATO totals, reflecting a causal link where enhanced might correlates with reduced invasion risks, as unchecked power imbalances historically precipitate conflict rather than diplomacy alone.^[98] Advancements in military technology, particularly artificial intelligence, further amplify the decisiveness of might in contemporary policy, enabling superior data dominance and autonomous systems that outpace adversaries in predictive targeting and operational speed. For instance, AI integration in warfare has boosted drone strike accuracy and real-time threat detection, reshaping battlespaces where technological edge determines outcomes over normative appeals.^[99] ^[100] Democracies leveraging innovation coalitions, such as U.S.-aligned partnerships in advanced weaponry development, gain advantages over authoritarian counterparts by pooling resources to deter expansionism, as seen in joint efforts against Chinese technological assertiveness.^[101] In democratic governance, power negotiation emerges as a pragmatic tool, exemplified by approaches emphasizing leverage in alliances, where concessions from strength—such as pressuring NATO partners to meet spending targets—yield commitments that bolster collective defense without illusory reliance on goodwill.^[102] This counters optimistic views prioritizing dialogue absent enforcement, as realist analysis posits that military readiness preserves institutional freedoms by forestalling encroachments from regimes viewing democratic openness as exploitable frailty.^[103] Policies fostering such might thus safeguard electoral integrity and civil liberties against hybrid threats, ensuring that democratic resilience derives from credible coercive capacity rather than aspirational rhetoric.

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Aug 30, 2017 · The Melian Trap: “Might-makes-right”. The fascinating Melian Dialogue (5.84-5.116) is often presented as a stand-alone piece of international ...
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May 27, 2018 · The idea of “might makes right” may be attributed to Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War. In the work, ...
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Plato. The Republic - The Internet Classics Archive - MIT
So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present; but ...
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[PDF] Thrasymachus' Definition of Justice in Plato's "Republic" Author(s)
Thrasymachus starts with a bang by affirming that justice is the interest of the stronger, and he thinks he is defining justice, as Socrates had requested ...
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What Can You Learn from Machiavelli? - Yale Insights
Jan 1, 2011 · Machiavelli was the first theorist to decisively divorce politics from ethics, and hence to give a certain autonomy to the study of politics.
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Machiavelli's The Prince: Still Relevant after All These Years
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“Nasty, Brutish, and Short”: Thomas Hobbes on Life in the State of ...
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[PDF] The Social Contract – Hobbes (1651) - rintintin.colorado.edu
So, to get out of the state of nature, a contract is needed AND some *enforcement* of that contract is needed, or else no one will keep it. So, we elect ...
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[PDF] the "might makes right" fallacy: on a tacit justification for
"Might makes right," so the saying goes. What does this mean? What does it ... followed by Marx's philosophy of history and all subsequent Marxian interpretations ...<|separator|>
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The Melian Dialogue - Internet History Sourcebooks Project
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In writing his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides looked for human causes behind results and refused to credit the gods with responsibility for the ...
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Callicles and Thrasymachus - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gorgias, by Plato
Apr 27, 2022 · Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the ...<|separator|>
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Politics by Aristotle - The Internet Classics Archive
For there is one rule exercised over subjects who are by nature free, another over subjects who are by nature slaves. The rule of a household is a monarchy, for ...
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Aristotle: Politics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In his Politics, he describes the role that politics and the political community must play in bringing about the virtuous life in the citizenry.The Texts · Challenges of the Texts · The Politics, Book I · The Politics, Book III
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[PDF] Geopolitical Relations in the European Middle Ages: History and ...
Medieval political geography is the story of the cohesion between and fragmentation of feudal lordships—a phenomenon of ruling-class organization. War and Peace ...
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[PDF] State Authority and Foreign Policy in Medieval and Modern Europe
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1 - Politics and Power in High Medieval Europe, c. 1000–1200
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William of Ockham - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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[PDF] An Evaluation of William of Ockham's Political Philosophy
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France - Absolutism, Louis XIV, Monarchy - Britannica
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The Reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715): An Overview - History
He offered the country's noble elites a virtual monopoly on government offices and favors in exchange for their support.
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Hugo Grotius - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Locke's Political Philosophy
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Friedrich Nietzsche - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Herbert Spencer on the Survival of the Fittest - New Learning Online
He coined the term 'survival of the fittest' seven years before Darwin's publication of his theory of natural history, The Origin of the Species in 1859.
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[PDF] "New Thinking" in Soviet Approaches to International Politics and Law
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[PDF] “The Doctrine of Fascism” (1932) by Benito Mussolini
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Benito Mussolini: What is Fascism (1932)
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[PDF] The Realism of Hans Morgenthau - Digital Commons @ USF
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The Tragedy of Great Power Politics The Tragedy of ... - Academia.edu
This work proposes a theory of international relations termed offensive realism, which asserts that great powers are driven to maximize their share of world ...
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The Veto : UN Security Council Working Methods
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The veto power is an institutional tool given to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5), which has dominated the council's workings.
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The Mongol Horde: An Unstoppable Force
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[PDF] Questioning the Universal Relevance of the Universal Declaration of ...
17 Claims to universality of human rights are thus often considered as claims to cultural hegemony in disguise. 18 In fact, even though all cultures tend to ...<|separator|>
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The British Policy of Appeasement toward Hitler and Nazi Germany
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[PDF] Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s
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The Peace of Westphalia with providing the foundation of the modern state system and articulating the concept of territorial sovereignty.
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The Role of the ICC. The International Criminal Court was created to bring justice to the world's worst war criminals, but debate over the court still rages.
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It's still easy for great powers to avoid international justice
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How membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ...
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Enforce the liberal order “The use of force is a necessary (if sometimes unsavoury) part of enforcing an effective rules-based system.”
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[PDF] The End of the U.S.-Backed International Order and the Future of ...
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US Intervention in the Balkans: The 1990s Yugoslav Wars Explained
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Read the Manual: Reversing the Trends of Failure in NATO ...
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[PDF] The Failure of U.S. Foreign Intervention in Chile and Afghanistan
Case Studies of Chile and Afghanistan. These operations in Chile and Afghanistan have not only have failed to bring stable democracies, but also have led to ...
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The theory's basic thesis states that a hegemonic, or dominant, power is a necessary condition for the presence of a liberal international economic order. When ...
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Trump and the Interregnum of American Nuclear Hegemony
Nuclear hegemony enabled the United States to legitimate its leadership and to exercise authority over vast bulk of the nuclear weapons aimed at the former ...
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The Power of Deterrence | YIP Institute
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THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA PARADOX: RATIONALITY, MORALITY ...
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Intelligence reveals scale of China's base-building in the South ...
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China continues to militarize the South China Sea – here's what ...
Apr 25, 2025 · China has continued to aggressively militarize the South China Sea and inflame tensions with other coastal nations.
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[PDF] A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War (2023-2025)
Specifically, we address the claims that Israel intentionally starved the Gazan population, that IDF ground forces deliberately massacred civilians, and that ...
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Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission finds
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Global order shifting from US-led unipolarity toward multipolarity
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Unprecedented rise in global military expenditure as European and ...
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE'S GROWING ROLE IN MODERN ...
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Artificial Intelligence and Future Warfare - Army University Press
Sep 17, 2025 · The rise of AI and autonomous systems undeniably transforms modern warfare, offering unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges for ...
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Democracies' Advantage: Leveraging Innovation Coalitions to Meet ...
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[PDF] The Relevance of Power in International Relations
Jan 24, 2011 · The realist perspective in particular associates power relations with the prospect of interstate ... weakness invites aggression from opponents.