Word: realpolitiker
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...Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein was prevented from slaughtering the Kurds. Two decades earlier, after secretly encouraging the Kurds to rebel, the U.S. had callously cut them off when they no longer served its interests; in explaining this decision to a closed hearing, Kissinger gave a classic exposition of realpolitik: "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work." Given America's moral streak, such an approach tends to require secrecy. Bush did not have that option: a barrage of pictures of suffering Kurds finally compelled him to step...
Clinton has not been just a yes-man to Republican-style realpolitik, and the few foreign policy changes he has advocated could still spell large consequences: a tougher line toward China, for instance, and more tender treatment of Israel in the Middle East negotiations. Among all foreigners, in fact, the Chinese and Arabs appear to be the most nervous at the prospect of a President Clinton, who has accused Bush of "coddling tyrants from Baghdad to Beijing...
With the collapse of Soviet communism, the possibilities for diplomatic rapprochement might seem to be good, but that is misleading. Even though Moscow and Tokyo talk of settling the dispute in terms of "legitimacy and justice," control of the Kuriles turns more on issues of realpolitik. Says Mikhail Vysokov, director of the Sakhalin Center of Modern History: "Those with power have rights. When Russia had more power, it had more rights. Now Japan has more power...
...such approaches are risky; whether they are worth taking depends on what the West deems its interest in the former Yugoslavia to be. In the realpolitik calculus of international affairs, Bosnia does not fit into any of the categories that demand intervention. No communist dominoes are at stake. Human-rights violations are gruesome but are not something for which any country wants to sacrifice its own soldiers. It is true that Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia and other former Yugoslav republics are now independent countries, but Europe and the U.S. tend to regard Serbian aggression against them as internal ethnic strife...
...increasingly militant Mandela and others is that De Klerk, despite his reforms, is not intent on securing justice and freedom for all; if that were true, he would be doing more to end the township violence. Instead, they believe, De Klerk has revealed himself as a ruthless practitioner of realpolitik, determined to preserve decisive white power and privilege...