Power politics behavior is a series of steps to war, not to peace. It is one of the great contradictions of the history of the modern global system that while the theory of power politics has been offered as the only realistic path to attain and secure peace, the practices of power politics have been associated with the outbreak of war. Power politics or realpolitik behavior may be defined as actions based on an image of the world as insecure and anarchic which leads to distrust, struggles for power, interest taking precedence over norms and rules, the use of Machiavellian stratagems, coercion, attempts to balance power, reliance on self-help, and the use of force and war as the ultima ratio (Vasquez, 1983a: 216).

Power politics behavior should be distinguished from power politics theory or realism, which is an abstract body of generalizations and prescriptions derived from and intended to shape practices in the world. Much of the difficulty in creating a scientific study of world politics has stemmed from the failure to understand where power politics theory has come from, the role it has played in history, and how it both reflects and helped to create the historical conditions we have inherited. Power politics is not so much an explanation of world politics, as it is a form of behavior that must itself be explained (see Vasquez, 1983a: 215ff). Power politics theory is not simply a perspective on history, but a datum of history that should be subjected to scientific analysis.