Hans Morgenthau
THE REALITY OF THE NATIONAL
INTEREST*
Any rational · approach
to
foreign policy requires the as–
sumption that there exists a national interest as an objective datum, by
which thought and action can orient themselves. Without that assump–
tion, we could not speak of truth with regard to matters of foreign
policy but only of opinion. People would take a stand according to
their individual preferences, and there would be no possibility of
distinguishing between correct and false opinion. One man's opinion
would be as good as the next one's, and power to make one opinion
prevail over the others in the contest of the marketplace would be the
only applicable criterion.
It
is obvious that nobody seriously concerned with foreign policy
shares these sophist assumptions. We all assume implicitly that there
exists a truth about matters political which is accessible to human
reason. History bears that assumption out.
What strikes the analyst of foreign policy is the consistency of
certain conceptions of the national interest during long periods of
history. For four centuries the national interest of Great Britain has
been defined in theory and affirmed in practice as the preservation and,
if need be , the restoration of the European balance of power. Regard–
less of changes in th e composition of the ruling class or in political and
economic in terests and ideologies, this conception of the British
national interest prevailed in the theory and practice of British foreign
policy from Henry
VIII
to the present day. What made it prevail was
the objective rational element contained in this conception which no
rational mind could escape. That is to say, whoever wanted to under–
stand and further the British national interest in a rational manner had
to assume that the security of Great Britain was rationally dependent
upon the European balance of power.
I have tried to show elsewhere that the foreign policies of the other
·Hans Morgenthau had planned
to
expand this piece just before h e died.
