Are Machiavellian tactics still appropriate or defensible in politics?

In the history of political thought, the case for immoral behaviour of all kinds is nowhere more forcibly stated than by Machiavelli in The Prince. Here, Machiavelli is associated with the doctrine of moral expediency and deviousness in political actions; the divorce of politics and private morality; the justification of all political means, even the most unscrupulous, on grounds of reasons of state and the use of fraud, force, coercion and deceit for political ends.