realpolitik
Article
realpolitik is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 24, 2022 and August 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “challenging the fundamental assumption of realpolitik”; “If you happen to be a cold-blooded bastard with a deep understanding of the nature of supply lines and logistical warfare who naturally thinks in terms of realpolitik”. It most often appears alongside Europe, France, Italy.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: June 24, 2022
- Last seen: August 01, 2025
Appears In
Related Pages
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- Europe (2 shared issues)
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- France (2 shared issues)
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- Italy (2 shared issues)
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- New York (2 shared issues)
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- 501(c)(3) (1 shared issues)
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- 80,000 Hours (1 shared issues)
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- 11 (1 shared issues)
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- Adam Tooze (1 shared issues)
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- Afghan ambassador to Pakistan (1 shared issues)
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- Afghanistan (1 shared issues)
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- Africa (1 shared issues)
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- Agamemnon (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
It is very much an academic book that should revolutionise the whole field of IR by challenging the fundamental assumption of realpolitik with impressive rigour, so the brisk 200 pages should probably be mandatory reading for IR/political science freshmen. Like Robin Hanson, I would have been persuaded by an article length analysis, but as Hanania himself agrees, the belabouring book length treatment is to disabuse academics who by nature demand sweat and impressive mastery of literatures — this review should, dare I say, suffice for the cynical reader.
Inline links: Robin Hanson, Hanania
They did not do this without objections, and serious ones, from the peace party but also from military men not suddenly struck by Joan's charisma. And these men had good reasons to object. If you happen to be a cold-blooded bastard with a deep understanding of the nature of supply lines and logistical warfare who naturally thinks in terms of realpolitik, marching straight for Rheims is obviously a really stupid idea. It means taking an army through English- and Burgundian-held territory where their cavalry can harass your lines of communication, your back to the river, where one battle risks encirclement and destruction, overcoming or bypassing a tremendous number of strong English fortifications including Paris, all for a wholly intangible gain because Rheims isn't even a very large city. Instead they could try to seize key forts, attack Paris and take the capital, go to Normandy to harass the lines of communication of the English, move against the Burgundian capital to break the alliance - why are they going to Rheims?