Editing Realpolitik (section)

==Etymology==
The term ''Realpolitik'' was coined by [[Ludwig von Rochau]], a German writer and politician in the 19th century.<ref name="haslam">{{cite book |title=No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli |last=Haslam |first=Jonathan |year=2002 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-300-09150-2 |page=168}}</ref> His 1853 book ''Grundsätze der Realpolitik angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands'' ("Principles of ''Realpolitik'' applied to the national state of affairs of Germany") describes the meaning of the term:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AGVCAAAAYAAJ&q=Die+politischen+Organismus+der+menschlichen+Gesellschaft&pg=PA1|title=Grundsätze der Realpolitik angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands|author=von Rochau, Ludwig|year=1859}}</ref> {{blockquote|The study of the forces that shape, maintain and alter the state is the basis of all political insight and leads to the understanding that the law of power governs the world of states just as the law of gravity governs the physical world. The older political science was fully aware of this truth but drew a wrong and detrimental conclusion—the right of the more powerful. The modern era has corrected this unethical fallacy, but while breaking with the alleged right of the more powerful one, the modern era was too much inclined to overlook the real might of the more powerful and the inevitability of its political influence.}}

Historian [[John Bew (historian)|John Bew]] suggests that much of what stands for modern ''Realpolitik'' today deviates from the original meaning of the term. ''Realpolitik'' emerged in mid-19th century Europe from the collision of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] with state formation and power politics. The concept, Bew argues, was an early attempt at answering the conundrum of how to achieve [[Liberalism|liberal]] enlightened goals in a world that does not follow liberal enlightened rules.

Rochau coined the term in 1853 and added a second volume in 1869 that further refined his earlier arguments. Rochau, exiled in Paris until the [[French Revolution of 1848|1848 uprising]], returned during the revolution and became a well-known figure in the [[National Liberal Party (Germany)|National Liberal Party]]. As the liberal gains of the 1848 revolutions fell victim to coercive governments or were swallowed by powerful social forces such as class, religion and nationalism, Rochau—according to Bew—began to think hard about how the work that had begun with such enthusiasm had failed to yield any lasting results.

He said that the great achievement of the Enlightenment had been to show that might is not necessarily right. The mistake liberals made was to assume that the law of the strong had suddenly evaporated simply because it had been shown to be unjust. Rochau wrote that "to bring down the walls of Jericho, the Realpolitiker knows the simple pickaxe is more useful than the mightiest trumpet". Rochau's concept was seized upon by German thinkers in the mid and late 19th century and became associated with [[Otto von Bismarck]]'s statecraft in [[unification of Germany|unifying Germany]] in the mid 19th century. By 1890, usage of the word ''Realpolitik'' was widespread, yet increasingly detached from its original meaning.<ref name="Bew">{{cite book |title=Real Realpolitik: A History |last=Bew |first=John |year=2014 |publisher=The Library of Congress |location=Washington, D.C.| url=https://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=6285}}</ref>